Will we ever understand what goes on inside the mind of a neural network?The fear: When AI systems go wrong, no one will be able to explain the reasoning behind their decisions.

Controversy erupted over the need for transparency in research into AI for medicine. Google Health introduced a system that purportedly identified breast cancer more accurately than human radiologists.

A new multimedia experience lets audience members help artificially intelligent creatures work together to survive. Agence, an interactive virtual reality (VR) project blends audience participation with reinforcement learning to create an experience that’s half film, half video game.

An AI-powered eye in the sky is helping firefighters control woodland blazes. California used maps drawn by neural networks to fight fires that threatened Yosemite National Park earlier this year.

Benchmarks provide a scientific basis for evaluating model performance, but they don’t necessarily map well to human cognitive abilities. Facebook aims to close the gap through a dynamic benchmarking method that keeps humans in the loop.

Two European capitals launched public logs of AI systems used by the government. Amsterdam and Helsinki provide online registries that describe the algorithms that govern municipal activities, such as automated parking control and a public health chatbot.

Documentary filmmakers often shield the identities of people who might be harmed for speaking out. But typical tactics like blurring faces and distorting voices can make it hard for audiences to connect emotionally. A new

Trying on new makeup is a hassle — apply, inspect, wash off, repeat. Not to mention the tribulation of visiting brick-and-mortar stores during the pandemic. Augmented reality is helping people try on all the makeup they want without leaving home.

Facing a tsunami of user-generated disinformation, YouTube is scrambling to stop its recommendation algorithm from promoting videos that spread potentially dangerous falsehoods.

An open source library could spawn trillion-parameter neural networks and help small-time developers build big-league models. Microsoft upgraded DeepSpeed, a library that accelerates the PyTorch deep learning framework.

AI has humbled human chess masters. Now it’s helping them take the game to the next level. DeepMind and retired chess champion Vladimir Kramnik trained AlphaZero, a reinforcement learning model that bested human experts in chess, Go, and Shogi, to play-test changes in the rules.

Some politicians and pundits believe that, in the AI era, the military with the most data wins. A new analysis disputes this notion. A report by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology examines the relative strengths of the Chinese and U.S. militaries in AI.

The White House called for new funding for AI research including a constellation of research centers. Nonetheless, the U.S. government’s annual spending on the technology still would lag behind that of several other

Covid shut down the tennis tournament at Wimbledon this year, but a new model simulates showdowns between the sport’s greatest players. Stanford researchers developed Vid2Player, a system that simulates the footwork, positioning, and strokes of tennis pros like Roger Federer.

The UK government abandoned a plan to use machine learning to assess students for higher education. The UK Department of Education discarded grades generated by an algorithm designed to predict performance on the annual Advanced Level qualifications, which had been canceled due to the pandemic.