According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a majority of rivers and streams in America cannot support healthy life with the number of rivers being polluted trending upwards.  55 percent of waterways in America are currently listed as “poor” and another 23 percent are listed as “fair.”  Additionally, millions of Americans drink water that contains unsafe levels of industrial chemicals according to Environmental Science & Technology Letters.  When it comes to water pollution specifically, AI technology can help detect the sources of pollution for clean-up. This week’s AI spotlight is on a robot called Envirobot which uses AI technology to find sources of pollution in bodies of water.  Developed by scientists at the Swiss research institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Envirobot is a four-foot long eel-like robot that is made up with small compartments attached to each other.  Ea ...

Former Harvard University President and U.S. Treasury Secretary recently demolished the idea of a robot tax and also issued a ringing endorsement of an activist government role to manage the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market and on society. 

On Wednesday, the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo released an article titled, “How to Make America’s Robots Great Again” which discusses how to revitalize America’s manufacturing sector through the increased use of robots.   It is true that robots have replaced workers in many manufacturing jobs, but  embracing automation has the potential to be beneficial to workers and the economy.  While automation has caused some displacement, many manufacturers are still hiring.  However, these jobs require new and different skills, and many workers are not currently trained to interact with machines in the way that augments their skills and maximizes automation’s potential.  According to a Deloitte study, roughly 2 million manufacturing jobs will go unfilled because of this skills gap.  One of the reasons for this, according to companies, is that education and training systems have not kept up with the evolving needs of indu ...