Politico became one of the first newsrooms last year to win a union contract that included rules on how the media outlet can deploy artificial intelligence. The PEN Guild, which represents Politico and its sister publication, environment and energy site E&E News, is now gearing up for another first. The union's members allege that the AI provisions in their contract have been violated, and they're preparing for a groundbreaking legal dispute with management. The outcome could set a precedent for how much input journalists ultimately have over how AI is used in their newsrooms. Last year, Politico began publishing AI-generated live news summaries during big political events like the Democratic National Convention and the US vice presidential debates.

After months spent traveling to packed rallies, refusing to wear masks in public, and throwing parties while the rest of the country was coping with the spread of the coronavirus, Donald Trump and the GOP are dealing personally with an outbreak that almost anybody could've seen coming. Trump tested positive and has been hospitalized with the virus, and many of those closest to him, including first lady Melania, campaign manager Bill Stepien, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, former adviser Kellyanne Conway, and close aide Hope Hicks, have all tested positive. And yet, even though the aggressive flouting of public health guidelines is precisely what led to this coronavirus cluster at the highest levels of government, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) After Trump tested positive, one would have thought that both sides would make an effort to make the venue safer. Finally, after some haggling about how far apart the two candidates would stand--with the Democrats arguing for more safety--the debate commission agreed to place the podiums 12 feet apart and set plexiglass between the candidates.

Anyone looking for a book about driverless cars -- smart, wide-ranging, nontechnical, easy to understand -- was pretty much out of luck until "Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead" was published in September. The authors, Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman, have a reputation for clear, succinct writing about emerging technologies. It's geared toward nonexperts, but scientists, engineers and computer programmers can learn new things too. Lipson is a roboticist and professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University, where he directs the Creative Machines Lab. Kurman, a former product manager and industry analyst at Microsoft, is an author and speaker with a specialty in technology and its effect on our daily lives and the economy.

Samsung Electronics Co. is joining the race to create the smartest digital assistant by acquiring Viv, a Silicon Valley start-up launched by the same entrepreneurs who sold Siri to Apple. The deal announced Wednesday provides Samsung with technology to compete against Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. in the increasingly important field of programming computers to learn and respond as if they were human. The specialty, also known as artificial intelligence, has hatched a flock of voice-activated digital concierges -- such as Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana and Google's Assistant -- that work in personal computers, smartphones and Internet-connected speakers. Samsung plans to implant Viv into phones, televisions and a wide range of other devices. The South Korean company did not disclose how much it paid for the start-up.

The Burbank Police Department has suspended officer deployments based on "predictive policing" technology hailed by top brass as the future of crime-fighting after complaints from police officers. The shift comes as police departments across the country are increasingly using computer technology to help predict crime trends and deploy officers accordingly. Some law enforcement agencies have said the system has helped crack down on crime. But in Burbank, critics said the software's algorithm couldn't beat a veteran officer's intuition and knowledge of his or her patrol area. They also said the algorithm sometimes zeroed in on obvious areas where officers already know there's crime or silly locations, such as the police station, where people often show up to report crimes.