AI & Robotics

A paper coauthored by over 112 researchers across 160 data and social science teams found that AI and statistical models, when used to predict six life outcomes for children, parents, and households, weren’t very accurate even when trained on 13,000 data points from over 4,000 families. They assert that the work is a cautionary tale on the use of predictive modeling, especially in the criminal…

Microsoft today announced that on April 21, Office 365 will become Microsoft 365, or “the subscription for your life.” The new suite builds on Office 365 with “new AI, rich content and templates, and cloud-powered experiences.” On April 21, Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions (up to six people) will replace Office 365 Personal and Office 365 Home. The pricing will…

Microsoft’s writing assistant for Microsoft 365 users is getting new AI-powered features like Rewrite Suggestions, which lets you highlight a sentence then right-click for multiple AI-generated revision ideas, and coming to Chrome and Edge browser extensions and Outlook.com. AI editor can also now review text for more gender-related inclusivity and issues that can arise like brevity, formality…

On Thursday afternoon, the United States became the country with the greatest number of known COVID-19 cases in the world. With millions out of work and the spread of the virus taking its toll, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and in anguish without ever getting off the couch. Inadequately supplied frontline healthcare workers are the heroes in the trenches of this war, but the world’s scientific…