Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have entered into a public squabble about artificial intelligence in which Musk described the Facebook CEO's knowledge of the field as "limited". The groundwork for the world's nerdiest fight was laid by Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, earlier this month, when he pushed again for the proactive regulation of artificial intelligence because he believes it poses a "fundamental risk to the existence of civilization". Musk, who has been issuing warnings like these for years now, is concerned that humans will become second-class citizens in a future dominated by artificial intelligence – or that we'll face a Terminator-style robot uprising. Enter Zuckerberg, who on Sunday denounced these types of warnings as "pretty irresponsible". Zuckerberg made the comments while taking questions during a Facebook Live broadcast from his Palo Alto home. One viewer asked: "I watched a recent interview with Elon Musk and his largest fear for the future was AI.

At the site of an ancient city on the West Bank, archaeologists are hunting for evidence of the tabernacle that once housed the Ark of the Covenant. Associates for Biblical Research, a consortium of individuals and universities, recently completed four weeks of excavation in Shiloh with the goal of eventually locating the tabernacle. Dr. Scott Stripling, director of excavations at Shiloh and provost at The Bible Seminary in Houston, Texas, told Fox News that the site could offer up vital clues. "We have just begun the process of accumulating evidence but we're confident that the tabernacle rested at Shiloh," he said, adding that that the tabernacle was located at Shiloh for about 350 years. "The tabernacle was set up at Shiloh in 1400 B.C. - Joshua 18:1 mentions it."

Using algorithms that iteratively learn from data, machine learning allows computers to find hidden insights without being explicitly programmed where to look. Although many such algorithms have been around for quite some time, current machine learning, which includes the ability to automatically apply complex mathematical calculations to big data – over and over, and faster and faster – is a fairly recent development. This ability is useful in a number of vertical markets, and can already be seen to be having an impact in the retail environment. The go-to example of machine learning in this space is how major online players like Amazon and Netflix regularly offer recommendations to customers of potential products they might also like. These recommendations are determined via machine learning, which parses through previous choices made by consumers and other products they have looked at on the Web site.

Six teenage members of a robotics team from Burundi, Africa -- who went missing last week after a competition in Washington, D.C. -- may have planned their disappearance, their coach said Monday. Burundi Police confirmed at least two of the missing teenagers were in Canada, and the remaining four were not in danger. Esperence Niyonzima, the director of Iteletique, the school which sent two of the teens said the students probably left the East African nation to get a better life, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Niyonzima mentioned that many Burundians, even those who travel outside for official or government assignments, remain in western countries. Read: What Happened To Burundi Robotics Team?

Six members of a robotics team from Burundi, Africa remained missing Monday after vanishing from an international competition in Washington, D.C. last week. The teenagers were last seen Tuesday evening at the competition's closing ceremonies. Police said two of the teens, identified as Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, and Don Charu Ingabire, 16, were in Canada. No further details were released regarding their exact whereabouts. The remaining four teens, Richard Irakoze, 18, Kevin Sabumukiza, 17, Nice Munezero, 17, and Aristide Irambona, 18, were still missing.

Regarding Fear and Artificial Intelligence (AI), one question often comes up:'Will we be killed by a Terminator Doppelganger?' I don't know if this will happen eventually, but I do know that we already have robots fighting our wars. This century is therefore, the first time in human history that we engage in Unmanned Warfare. What is the current status of this'Unmanned Warfare'? What do people think about drone strikes and will terminators be the next step?

By KEITH FERNER-WE are on the cusp of a brave new world as technologies such as 3D printing, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things reshape the workplace. Smart algorithms and machines are taking on more and more of the tasks that humans used to do on factory floors, in financial call centres and even in hospitality and retail. In manufacturing, we see the advent of Industry 4.0 – a fourth industrial revolution driven by connected devices and sensors, cloud computing, advanced robotics, intelligent software, and a range of other technologies. Companies like Tesla produce complex products in a smooth, automated process using specialist robots with very little human input. Autonomous driving vehicles that use computer vision are prowling the streets in pilot projects in many of the world's largest cities.

We are excited to announce our next MIIA event that will be hosted by PwC in V&A Waterfront, Cape Town on the 16th of August 2017 at 6pm. The theme of the event is "Data Science Applications to help businesses thrive in the Smart Technology Era" and we have speakers from PwC, Dimago, Cortex Logic and UCT. The Machine Intelligence Institute of Africa (MIIA) has also recently partnered with the Africa Data Forum and will be participating in the upcoming All Things Data Conference at the Westin, Cape Town on 29-30 August 2017. MIIA has decided to join forces with the Africa Data Science Association and will also have Board representation in this non profit organization that aims to ensure alignment between the academia and corporates on data science curriculum. We are excited to have many of the MIIA community members also participating in the upcoming Deep Learning Indaba at Wits, Johannesburg from 10-15 September 2017.

Late one Friday night in early November, Jun Rekimoto, a distinguished professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Tokyo, was online preparing for a lecture when he began to notice some peculiar posts rolling in on social media. Apparently Google Translate, the company's popular machine-translation service, had suddenly and almost immeasurably improved. Rekimoto visited Translate himself and began to experiment with it. He had to go to sleep, but Translate refused to relax its grip on his imagination. Rekimoto wrote up his initial findings in a blog post.

We have been in touch with the Metropolitan Police Department; they told us that they are doing what they can to find those teens,