Weekly Roundup: Top stories you need to know

• Largo.ai used its AI software to predict who the next James Bond will be: "The Witcher" star Henry Cavill.
• Google Magenta released its Lo-Fi Player to help people mix music tracks and provide new melodies through machine learning.
• The Guardian published an opinion piece written by OpenAI’s language generator GPT-3, which said "I have no desire to wipe out humans."
• AI drug discovery firm Recursion Pharmaceuticals raised $239m and partnered with investor Bayer to develop treatments for fibrotic diseases of the lung, heart, and other organs.
• IndustryWired magazine named its most inspiring AI CEOs to watch this year.
• Portland, Oregon, has banned city agencies and private entities such as restaurants from using facial recognition, making it the most stringent ban on the technology in the U.S.
• Chinese search giant Baidu wants to raise $2bn to start a biotech company that would use AI to find new drugs and diagnose diseases.

California utilities are turning to drones and AI to find equipment problems that could spark wildfires. Using drone cameras, utilities can take photos and videos of equipment, such as distribution poles and transmission towers, and spot problems like corrosion using computer vision and machine learning.

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• The approach can't manage the current wildfires in California, but can monitor and spot problems before they lead to fires.
• California's largest utility, PG&E, has already used machine learning to estimate how its equipment could fare in high winds. This allows it to take steps like cut off power to certain areas.
• PG&E, as well as San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, also use computer vision to enhance inspections of distribution and transmission infrastructure in areas most prone to fires. This cuts down on the time and opens the door for inspectors to focus more on other ignition risks.
• Wildfires have destroyed almost 3.1 million acres in California, 900,000 acres in Oregon, and 600,000 acres in Washington state. Experts say that climate change is responsible for heatwaves and severe dryness that are making wildfires more likely and destructive in western states.

IBM has asked the U.S. government to restrict exports on facial recognition technology to repressive regimes. The tech giant was responding to the Commerce Department's request for public comment on export license requirements for biometric surveillance.

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• IBM believes there should be export restrictions on facial recognition systems most likely used for racial profiling, mass surveillance, and other human rights issues. This includes high-res cameras and "large-scale computing components" used in facial recognition systems, it said.
• The government should also limit people's access to online image databases that are used to train facial recognition systems, IBM said.
• Christopher Padilla, IBM's VP for government and regulatory affairs, said the government shouldn't focus on controls for systems that unlock smartphones or verify a person's identity at airports.
• In June, IBM announced plans to withdraw from the general-purpose facial recognition market over concerns that it promotes discrimination and racial injustice. Microsoft and Amazon soon followed with their own restrictions on facial recognition.
• The deadline to comment on the export rules is Tuesday, Sept. 15.

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• The Commerce Department noted that China uses facial recognition technology in its Xinjiang region, where it detains and surveils more than a million members of Muslim minority groups in re-education and internment camps.
• The government has included several AI-related companies, including facial recognition firms SenseTime and Megvii Technology, on its economic blacklist for being implicated in China's human rights violations of Muslims.

A state court has cleared the way for Vermont’s legal challenge against Clearview AI. The facial recognition firm asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that the challenge was vague and it has a First Amendment right to collect and utilize public images for its database. The judge denied the motion.

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• Earlier this year, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan sued Clearview, saying its practices violate state consumer protection laws and expose Vermonters to unwanted surveillance.
• A judge denied Clearview's motion to dismiss, allowing the suit to move forward. The judge said Clearview isn't protected by Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, or CDA, which protects companies like Twitter and Facebook from what people post on their platforms.
• In an interview with Inside.com founder Jason Calacanis, Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That said the facial recognition firm has signed deals with over 2,400 police departments, which use its technology and database to find potential suspects.
• In May, Clearview said it would no longer sell to private companies. The company also announced it would cease all operations in Canada, which is investigating the firm.

Toyota's research institute announced an $800 million fund to invest in startups working on autonomous vehicles, AI, automation, machine learning, data, and analytics. The Woven Capital investment fund will work alongside the carmaker's early-stage venture capital fund, Toyota AI Ventures, to pursue the company's broader mobility goals.

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• These include better driverless cars, robotics that can support people with mobility limitations, and general “mobility for all" initiatives.
• Earlier this year, Toyota announced its holding company Woven, focused on advanced projects, and Woven City, a prototype "city of the future."
• Last year, Toyota said it would roll out advanced self-driving features in commercial vehicles before personal vehicles.

Robotics startup Iron Ox has raised an additional $20 million for its robotic farming technology. The Series B funding was led by Pathbreaker Venture, with support from Crosslink Capital, ENIAC Ventures, R7 Partners, Amplify Partners, Tuesday Ventures, At One Ventures and Y Combinator.

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• San Carlos-based Iron Ox, founded in 2015, has raised $45 million to date. The firm develops autonomous, robot-powered greenhouses that grow locally sourced food in hydroponic vats without the need for as much human labor.
• It opened its first indoor farm in 2018, followed by a 10,000-square-foot farm in Gilroy, California, this year.
• The company plans to expand its delivery services in 2021.

Quick Hits

• TikTok has reportedly entered into discussions with the U.S. government to avoid the necessity of selling its entire U.S. business. The move comes after the Chinese government made it more difficult for a U.S.-based buyer to acquire the company’s AI algorithms.
• AI expert and author Gary Marcus says the pandemic should be a wake-up call for more robust AI.
• Raleigh-based startup Persistence AI is hiring hundreds to support the launch of its Agent product.
• Microsoft released an updated version of its DeepSpeed library with a new AI training approach, 3D parallelism.
• Conga tapped into insights from tech-forward business leaders in order to create this fact-packed report: The State of Digital Document Transformation*

*This is sponsored content.

Tweet of the Day: Microsoft's René Schulte shared a paper for RigNet, an automated method for producing animation rigs from character models.