At first blush, Scot Barton might not seem like an AI pioneer. He isn't building self-driving cars or teaching computers to thrash humans at computer games. But within his role at Farmers Insurance, he is blazing a trail for the technology. Barton leads a team that analyzes data to answer questions about customer behavior and the design of different policies. His group is now using all sorts of cutting-edge machine-learning techniques, from deep neural networks to decision trees.

A drone crashed into a commercial plane in Canada on Thursday, renewing the aviation industry's worries about the growing number of small hobbyist aircraft taking to the skies. A landing Skyjet flight was less than two miles from Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec City when a drone struck the aircraft, according to CTV News. The plane landed successfully and "only sustained minor damage," according to a Sunday statement from Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau. "This should not have happened," Garneau told reporters, according to CTV News. "The drone should not have been there."

The automobile is being dismantled, reimagined, and rebuilt in Silicon Valley. Intel's proposed $15.3 billion acquisition of Mobileye, an Israeli company that supplies carmakers with a computer-vision technology and advanced driver assistance systems, offers a chance to measure the scale of this rebuild. In particular, it shows how valuable on-the-road data is likely to be in the evolution of automated driving. While the price tag might seem steep, especially with so many players in automated driving today, Mobileye has some key technological strengths and strategic advantages. It's also developing new technologies that could help solidify this position.

Four years ago, Alameda County, California's purchase of two drones for use by law enforcement was controversial. Now, the Alameda County Sheriff's Department has six drones, and their use is routine. So said Tom Madigan, a commander at the Alameda Sheriff's Office, to drone industry representatives and other law enforcement officials gathered at Drone World Expo in San Jose, Calif., last week. The Alameda County drone program has been fully operational for only about two years, Madigan said. In that time, he indicated, the Alameda Sheriff's Office has flown drones 700 times as part of 175 real-world missions, including search and rescue, fire scene surveillance, homicide scene analysis, and providing eyes in the sky during high-risk tactical operations.

But the proportion of women in economics is by some measures smaller. In the US, only about 13% of women hold permanent academic positions in economics; and in the UK the proportion is only slightly better at 15.5%. Only one woman has ever won the Nobel Prize in economics - American Elinor Ostrom in 2009. Some have argued that these figures aren't necessarily the result of bias. Maybe, they say, women are simply behaving rationally and choosing different disciplines that are perhaps more suited to their temperament and skills, or choosing to work in different but related fields.

Target's higher minimum wage aims to attract and retain good staffers. See how much other big retailers are paying. This May 3, 2017, photo shows the Target logo on a store in Upper Saint Clair, Pa. Target is jumping into voice-activated shopping as it deepens its relationship with Google, offering thousands of items found in the store except for perishables like fruit and milk. The move is happening as Google says shopping will be available later in 2017 through Google Assistant on iPhone and Android phones, joining its Google Home device and Android TV.

OK, sure, there are self-driving cars on California roads today. General Motors' Cruise has Chevrolet Bolts zipping around San Francisco; Google self-driving spinoff Waymo has got Chrysler Pacifica motoring about Mountain View; secretive startup Zoox has black Toyota Highlanders mixing it up along San Francisco's Embarcadero. But all these vehicles, however capable, have a decidedly un-futuristic feature: There's a human in the driver's seat, ready to grab control in case the robot goes rogue. California's Department of Motor Vehicles requires that safety driver to be there. But if autonomous technology is ever going to deliver on its promises, the human has got to go.

At MUFG, Mike said "robotics process automation" will handle half of branch operations by the end of the business year to March 2024, or 30 percent of the bank's total. By the time of full installation, the automation would have handled the equivalent of 9,500 employee's workload, he said.

When the Sony Aibo was discontinued in 2006, it was arguably the most sophisticated consumer robot that you could get your hands on. Aibo was smart, cute, fun. Many people who owned Aibos loved their robots (perhaps a bit too much), and even more people wished they'd had one. We should note that this information comes from Nikkei Asian Review, not directly from Sony itself, and that the report doesn't directly cite any sources for this news. The article says that Sony is currently forming a new Aibo development team consisting of everyone who used to work on Aibo and is still at the company.