Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

AI Comes to the Tax Code Governments turn to machine learning to boost revenue as taxpayers seek to reduce their bills By   Richard Rubin Feb. 26, 2020 5:30 am ET   IRVINE, Calif.—Tax cheats, beware: The machines are watching. Governments are increasingly relying on machine learning and data analytics to analyze troves of data as they seek to detect tax evasion, respond to taxpayers’ questions and make themselves more efficient. In Brazil, the customs agency’s system for detecting anomalies now prompts more than 30% of inspections. Canada next month will launch Charlie the Chatbot, an automated system that will respond to inquiries about tax filing. The Internal Revenue Service is designing machine-built graphs to plot the relationships among participants in business deals, giving auditors a new tool to analyze transactions and detect tax avoidance. The agency is using artificial intelligence to study notes that agency employees take when fielding questions ...

Coronavirus breakthrough? Israeli researchers make discovery that could lead to vaccine This discovery was identified as a by-product of MIGAL’s development of a vaccine against IBV, a disease affecting poultry. By Aryeh Savir, TPS   February 27, 2020 Israeli researchers at MIGAL Institute have developed an effective vaccine against avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) and are adapting it to create a human vaccine against Coronavirus (COVID-19), which is rapidly spreading around the globe. After four years of multi-disciplinary research funded by Israel’s Ministry of Science and Technology in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture, the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute has achieved a scientific breakthrough that may lead to the rapid creation of a vaccine against coronavirus in the coming weeks. This discovery was identified as a by-product of MIGAL’s development of a vaccine against IBV, a disease affecting poultry, which effectiveness ha...

Coronavirus Forces Universities Online Compelled to close their campuses to limit the spread of coronavirus, U.S. universities with Chinese branches move at lightning speed to take teaching online. By  Lindsay McKenzie February 25, 2020 After celebrating the Lunar New Year earlier this month, thousands of students at U.S. universities in China have resumed classes. But the campuses are eerily quiet, and classrooms remain empty. That's because classes have moved online in the wake of the coronavirus. The transition from face-to-face to fully online wasn’t one leaders at institutions such as Duke Kunshan University and New York University Shanghai had planned for. Preparing to teach a course online for the first time usually takes several months. Faculty at institutions in China have done it in less than three weeks -- a remarkable feat.   “It’s been highly stressful, but at the same time, the clarity of the crisis has brought us together,” said Clay Shirky, vice...

Aided by machine learning, scientists find a novel antibiotic able to kill superbugs in mice   By   CASEY ROSS  FEBRUARY 20, 2020 F or decades, discovering novel antibiotics meant digging through the same patch of dirt. Biologists spent countless hours screening soil-dwelling microbes for properties known to kill harmful bacteria. But as superbugs resistant to existing antibiotics have spread widely, breakthroughs were becoming as rare as new places to dig. Now, artificial intelligence is giving scientists a reason to dramatically expand their search into databases of molecules that look nothing like existing antibiotics. A  study  published Thursday in the journal Cell describes how researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used machine learning to identify a molecule that appears capable of countering some of the world’s most formidable pathogens. When tested in mice, the molecule, dubbed halicin, effectively treated the gastroint...

MGM Seeks To Replace 2,000 Workers With Robots By 2020 by Tyler Durden Thu, 02/20/2020 - 15:30 Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk, Despite a contract that prohibits MGM from using robots to displace workers, the casino seeks to implement those plans. VegasSlotsOnline reports MGM Could Replace Many Employees with Robots MGM, one of the major global casino companies, is considering replacing some workers with robots, which will cause some concern for their employees and those in the industry as a whole. The Las Vegas Culinary Union (LVCU), which represents bartenders, kitchen staff, and wait staff, reached a five-year deal in June 2018 with the MGM. The agreement guarantees that MGM will not implement any technology that would have a negative impact on employment. However, the news that the MGM is considering replacing some workers with robots could mean that the company is not willing to fulfill this agreement. Short Synopsis •   MGM is thinking a...

Brussels pushes back on Zuckerberg pitch Facebook’s CEO was given a cold reception by senior EU officials. By  MARK SCOTT ,  STEPHEN BROWN ,  LAURA KAYALI   AND   MELISSA HEIKKILÄ   Updated  2/17/20, 8:24 PM CET Mark Zuckerberg came to Brussels looking to make friends. But in a number of high-profile meetings Monday, European officials responded: no thanks. Facebook's chief executive was scolded for the company's involvement in a series of recent scandals, asked to do more to clamp down on widespread misinformation on its global platform and urged to take greater responsibility for the role that the social networking giant plays in people's daily lives. The cold reception comes as the tech giant is facing mounting regulatory pressure in Europe, the United States and beyond. In response, Zuckerberg has pledged billions of dollars in resources to clamp down on everything from fake news to privacy violations — promises that have been met...

The world's biggest work-from-home experiment has been triggered by coronavirus By  Jessie Yeung , CNN Updated 0809 GMT (1609 HKT) February 15, 2020 Hong Kong (CNN Business) In offices across Asia, desks are empty and the phones are quiet, as the region grapples with a deadly virus. In major hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, shops are shuttered, public facilities are closed, and there are few people wandering the usually-bustling financial districts. Instead, millions of people are holed up in their apartments, in what may be the world's biggest work-from-home experiment. The  novel coronavirus outbreak , which began in Wuhan, China, in December, has now infected more than 67,000 people and killed over 1,500, the vast majority in mainland China. Around 60 million people in China were put under full or partial lockdown in January as the government tried to contain the virus. Restrictions have been implemented in many other places too -- but there is also  p...