Jim Robinson of RRE Ventures said it best last month at the Silicon Dragon Conference when comparing Silicon Valley to New York, "There are two kinds of centers that have a lot of startups and technology, there are technology centers and commerce centers." New York falls into the later category, while the Valley is the former. Sitting next to Jim, I reflected that Singapore might be in both groups, an Asian commerce hub and a leader in mechatronics. As an advocate for automation, I am often disheartened that the United States significantly lags behind its industrial counterparts in manufacturing autonomous machines. The key to a pro-job policy could be gleaning from the successes of countries like Singapore to implement America's own'Robot First Plan.'

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. When Timnit Gebru attended a prestigious AI research conference last year, she counted 6 black people in the audience out of an estimated 8,500. As a PhD candidate at Stanford University who has published a number of notable papers in the field of artificial intelligence, Gebru finds the lack of diversity in the industry to be "extremely alarming" and effectively an "international emergency."

Lots of algorithms go bad unintentionally. Some of them, however, are made to be criminal. Algorithms are formal rules, usually written in computer code, that make predictions on future events based on historical patterns. To train an algorithm you need to provide historical data as well as a definition of success. We've seen finance get taken over by algorithms in the past few decades. Trading algorithms use historical data to predict movements in the market. Success for that algorithm is a predictable market move, and the algorithm is vigilant for patterns that have historically happened just before that move.

When Swedbank customers face a problem, they reach out to Nina, the bank's virtual assistant. Visitors to Mizuho Bank are greeted by Pepper, a humanoid robot standing four feet tall. Santander allows payments to be activated by voice, and JP Morgan Chase now uses machine learning to review commercial loan agreements in seconds, a task that used to take 3,60,000 manhours every year. Wherever you look in the world of financial services, you will find some form of artificial intelligence (AI) at work. AI technologies such as machine learning and speech recognition are quietly working behind the scenes to improve lending decisions and prevent fraud.

Huawei is gearing up to launch an application processor that combines CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphics processing unit) and AI (artificial intelligence) functions, according to a report from DigiTimes. Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu discussed the plans during the 2017 China Internet Conference in Beijing which started earlier this week. Yu stated that the new processor would debut in the second half of the year, though he didn't go into specifics about what the AI component of the chip would allow for (CPU and GPU have been being built into the same SoC since 2010). Yu did mention, however, that Huawei's EMUI interface supported "deep machine learning and smart computing capability," said DigiTimes. Which CPU and GPU will feature in this new chip is an interesting question.

Automation, digital platforms, and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work. Understanding these shifts can help policy makers, business leaders, and workers move forward. The world of work is in a state of flux, which is causing considerable anxiety--and with good reason. There is growing polarization of labor-market opportunities between high- and low-skill jobs, unemployment and underemployment especially among young people, stagnating incomes for a large proportion of households, and income inequality. Migration and its effects on jobs has become a sensitive political issue in many advanced economies. And from Mumbai to Manchester, public debate rages about the future of work and whether there will be enough jobs to gainfully employ everyone.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. We could watch these water drones swim and dive all day. They were developed by APIUM Swarm Robotics, which took them for a swim off of Catalina Island in California.

From crop dusting to package delivery, commercial drones are about to become a part of everyday life. "Just in the last 18 months, we've registered twice as many unmanned aircraft (as) we registered all aircraft from the previous 100 years," said Earl Lawrence, director of the Federal Aviation Administration's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office. To safely integrate the vast numbers of new unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the nation's airspace, the FAA is relying on a group of 23 research institutions led by Mississippi State University. The Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) is conducting in-depth studies on virtually every aspect of drone operations, including air traffic control, pilot certification and crash avoidance. "What happens when a drone hits a wing or a windshield or any other part of the aircraft is (one) of our key questions," Lawrence said.

When Afghan 10th-grader Fatemeh Qaderian learned that her girls' robotics team had been denied visas to attend an international competition in Washington -- despite applying twice -- the 14-year-old said she "lost hope." "We worked hard and spent a lot of time," said Qaderian, who flew back and forth with her teammates from their hometown in western Afghanistan to apply at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. "I called my parents and told them what happened, and they were upset, too." Those emotions morphed into elation as Qaderian and her teammates boarded a plane at Kabul International Airport on Friday morning en route to next week's competition, having been granted visas thanks to last-minute intervention by the Trump administration. "It's impossible to express how excited I am," Qaderian said.

Imagine doing your morning workout with the help of a virtual personal assistant that instructs you while you are at it and even encourages you to do another lap so that you can meet your fitness goals. A product of Delhi-based Boltt Sports Technologies, B is powered by artificial intelligence. "We launched Boltt two years ago.Arnav Kishore was a professional tennis player and tech freak. We started with smart shoes that can track all biomechanical data," said Aayushi Kishore, 27, who cofounded Boltt with her 24-year-old brother Arnav two years ago. Their family runs Globalite Retail, a sport lifestyle brand.