Fears of AI leapfrogging human cognition and ushering in Doomsday abound. The current impact of AI and ML, which devour vast energy, yield tons of toxic waste, and cleave deep social chasms, gleans less notice. The Yuan hereby proclaims our ESG policy to help safeguard our Earth.

As The Yuan celebrates our second anniversary, our Chief Editor Wang Shifeng briefly reviews AI developments over the past two years, and announces that our paywall has ended, as we are shifting from a paid subscription model, to a voluntary contribution plan to defray our costs.

Views on AI diverge. Some see a savior bestowing immortality on and whisking humanity off to the stars. Others descry a false prophet encompassing the ruin of humankind. The Yuan is cordially inviting our contributors to read their auguries and divine a time when AI ‘outsmarts’ us in this new series.

Starting today, The Yuan will be airing a podcast series to allow our audience to experience our AI content in a convenient, immediate sound format. Our vibrant panel of expert guests will weigh in on the latest topics and developments in AI in lively exchanges that will seek to reveal what’s really going on behind the scenes.

The Yuan is staging its second annual outlook on what AI holds in store for 2023. Our squad of select experts will be augmented in this round by the inclusion of more submissions, for which we are seeking new contributors.

The Yuan is dedicating our Open Medical Data debate series to the birthday of the father of modern artificial intelligence on June 23. Open medical data is an issue for the whole globe, one for both the developed and developing world alike. It is a tech issue and a health issue all in one. How important will open medical datasets be in future? We are trying to answer.

As the 110th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, approaches, The Yuan is hosting the first global debate on allowing open access to medical data. Talented contributors from across the world will give their view on the pros and cons of open data sets to the advancement of digital health.

After an almost apocalyptic year where the COVID-19 pandemic held the world to ransom, there is an AI light at the end of the tunnel. The Yuan Chief Editor Shifeng Wang laments the 2021 annus horribilis but predicts a better year ahead in 2022.

Our ancestors went in fear of disease and the unknown wind, rain and lightning because they did not know what state succeeded the death, which these forebears also feared. Therefore, our progenitors consigned their own lives and their understanding thereof to the existence of higher powers, hoping to ease their senseless fear by surrendering some of their cognition and power to establish a channel for dialog with unknown forces.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become such a force driving human civilization forward that no one can stand in the juggernaut’s path. The time is ripe for AI to announce its intentions to the world and The Yuan intends to provide an open community platform for it and its readers to express their views on its infinite scientific wisdom.