Doctors are overwhelmed by clerical work. Healthcare-savvy voice assistants are picking up the slack.

AI experts convened to discuss how to combat the coronavirus crisis. An online conference hosted by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI explored how machine learning is being deployed to address this pandemic — and prepare for the next one.

An unconventional approach to modifying data is cutting the amount of work required to train self-driving cars. Waymo unveiled a machine learning pipeline that varies lidar scans representing pedestrians and other objects.

Neural networks revealed both how hard Covid-19 has hit the Chinese economy, and hopeful signs that a renaissance may be underway. Researchers analyzed satellite imagery, GPS signals, and social media to get a multifaceted view of the pandemic’s impact.

Machine learning thrives on data, but information about the novel coronavirus and the illness it produces has been either thin or hard to access. Now researchers are pooling resources to share everything we do know.

A digital attorney is helping consumers take telemarketers and phone scammers to court. DoNotPay makes an app billed as the world’s first robot lawyer. Its latest offering, Robo Revenge, automates the process of suing intrusive robocallers.

Chinese tech giants have opened their AI platforms to scientists fighting coronavirus. Alibaba Cloud and Baidu are offering a powerful weapon to life-science researchers working to stop the spread of the illness officially known as Covid-19: free access to their computing horsepower and tools.

Severe heat waves and cold snaps are especially hard to forecast because atmospheric perturbations can have effects that are difficult to compute. Neural networks show promise where typical methods have stumbled.

A drug designed by AI has been approved for testing in humans. A UK startup focused on automated drug discovery teamed up with a Japanese pharmaceutical company to produce a new medicine for obsessive compulsive disorder.

A protein’s biological function depends largely on its three-dimensional shape, but deducing its shape from its sequence of amino acids has been a longstanding problem. Researchers at DeepMind reveal how they used deep learning to solve the puzzle.

A company that analyzes online information to predict epidemics spotted the upsurge in coronavirus at least a week ahead of public-health authorities. Canadian startup BlueDot alerted customers to the outbreak in he Chinese city of Wuhan on New Year’s Eve.

When artificial intelligence meets biology, even the simplest life forms can be mind-blowing. Researchers at Tufts and the University of Vermont programmed an evolutionary algorithm to design virtual organisms with specific capabilities.

Could a black box become Hollywood’s crystal ball?What’s new: Warner Bros. is using an AI-powered tool that predicts a movie’s box-office success, according to Hollywood Reporter.

AI is providing an early warning system for volcanoes on the verge of blowing their top. Researchers at the University of Leeds developed a neural net that scans satellite data for indications that the ground near a volcano is swelling—a sign it may be close to erupting.

Google's AI platform offers a view into the mind of its machines. Explainable AI (xAI) tools show which features exerted the most influence on a model’s decision, so users can evaluate model performance and potentially mitigate biased results.