Last week, the White House released a report chronicling the Obama administration's concerns over Big Data and artificial intelligence. Many prominent thinkers and scientists have come out recently with warnings about the dangers of unchecked artificial intelligence. However, the A.I. the White House report refers to is not of the Terminator ilk -- rather, Obama has concerns over algorithmic artificial intelligence operating without human oversight. The report, "Big Data: A Report on Algorithmic Systems, Opportunity, and Civil Rights," catalogs the growing sphere of influence represented by Big Data in society, including employment, higher education, and criminal justice. "As data-driven services become increasingly ubiquitous, and as we come to depend on them more and more, we must address concerns about intentional or implicit biases that may emerge from both the data and the algorithms used as well as the impact they may have on the user and society. Questions of transparency arise when companies, institutions, and organizations use algorithmic systems and automated processes to inform decisions that affect our lives, such as whether or not we qualify for credit or employment opportunities, or which financial, employment and housing advertisements we see." "If feedback loops are not thoughtfully constructed, a predictive algorithmic system built in this manner could perpetuate policing practices that are not sufficiently attuned to community needs and potentially impede efforts to improve community trust and safety. For example, machine learning systems that take into account past arrests could indicate that certain communities require more policing and oversight, when in fact the communities may be changing for the better over time."

The company is continuing its review of the potential to use drones someday in its global package delivery system, teaming with two partners to deliver blood supplies later this year in Rwanda. The company, through its UPS Foundation, has committed 800,000 toward the project with Zipline, a California robotics company; and Gavi, a Swiss-based group that works to bring vaccines to children in poor countries. UPS said that starting later this year, the Rwandan government intends to begin using Zipline drones to delivery blood to 21 transfusing facilities in the western half of the country. The goal is to step up the battle against the deaths of women who hemorrhage after giving birth. The additional blood can allow for life-saving transfusions on a continent known for the world's high rates of maternal death, according to the World Health Organization.

In October 2011, Apple added the emoji keyboard to iOS as an international keyboard. Since then, digital language has evolved such that nearly half of comments and captions on Instagram contain emoji characters. And earlier this week, Instagram also added support for emoji characters in hashtags, which allows people to tag and search content with their favorite emoji # . In Part 1 of this blog post series, we will take a deep dive into emoji usage on Instagram. By applying machine learning and natural language processing techniques, we'll discover the hidden semantics of emoji.

Belgian prime minster Charles Michel's recent drive to promote the country as a positive place for investment is understandable after recent terrorist activity in Brussels, but it seems he may have missed an opportunity. Right on his doorstep, in the northern Belgium coastal town of Oostende, he has a company programming and selling robotsthat help humans dance, sing and learn new skills. The global robotics market is expected to be worth 1.5bn ( 1bn) by 2019 and although currently dominated by projections for industrial robots, demand for business and consumer robotics is expected to grow seven times faster than in manufacturing. "Belgium is Belgium," says Tommy Deblieck, co-founder of QBMT Solutions, the company behind the Zora social robot. "The government has a digital agenda and we said: 'What about robotics?' The only answer we got was: 'Oops, we forgot about that.'"

The problem is that if robot labor is cheaper and more reliable than human labor, why bother with the latter? The payback period for industrial robots (the time it takes for their extra costs to be paid off) is falling sharply. For a welding robot to be used in a Chinese factory, for example, the period has fallen from 5.3 years in 2010, to 1.7 years in 2015, say analysts from Citi. By 2017, they say it could be as low as 1.3 years. And more robots in factories equals fewer jobs for humans.

Animals normally get time to adapt to human change. Agriculture took thousands of years to spread and alter landscapes. Cities, too, were generally built up over hundreds of years, with nearby species figuring out how to adapt or at least move away from them. Drones are new, and while animals haven't yet had time to adapt to the small flying unmanned vehicles, they often react defensively, and with anger. Researchers from Duke University found this out when monitoring the elephant population in Gabon.

Here are this week's top stories in fraud and big data technology: Thanks to its huge network of users, Sprint has access to vast amounts of user data. Three years ago it established subsidiary Pinsight Media to investigate ways of capitalizing on that data. Since then it has gone from serving zero to six billion ad impressions per months, based on "authenticated first party data" which it alone has access to. The fact that plain passwords are no longer safe to protect our digital identities is no secret. For years, the use of two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a means to ensure online account security and prevent fraud has been a hot topic of discussion.

ETFdb: The Magha CGI 30 index consists of large-cap U.S. equities with an average market cap of about 150 billion. Furthermore, the index is said to comprise socially responsible holdings. What determines if a company is socially responsible or not based on your methodology? In other words, what is the criteria for a company to be included in the index? All corporations give back in some way or another.

Patients in the most remote regions of the world may soon be casting their eyes skyward for medical supplies. Delivery company UPS is backing a start-up using drug-dropping-drones in Rwanda to transportlife-saving blood supplies and vaccines. Rather than sending supplies by road, firms are looking to the skies to get the medical supplies to where they are needed, with the automated air deliveries 20 times faster than by land. Delivery company UPS is backing a start-up using drones in Rwanda to transport life-saving blood supplies and vaccines. UPS will provide 800,000 ( 554,000) to a partnership including Gavi, agroup providing vaccines to developing countries, and robotics companyZipline International for drone flights in Rwanda startingin August.

Everyone seems to have an idea for making them useful--Amazon wants to use them for deliveries, Facebook sees them beaming the Internet to remote areas--but so far it all seems so very outlandish. A California startup called Zipline has a practical plan to use the devices for good. Later this year the company, working with UPS and vaccine distributer Gavi, plans to deploy a fleet of drones in Rwanda, where the machines will deliver medical supplies. The goal is to see 15 autonomous aircraft flying out of a centralized hub make 150 deliveries each day to 21 medical stations throughout the western half of the country. The Rwandan government, which has embraced drone technology and recently approved remarkably progressive guidelines for its use, is working with Zipline to measure the success of the venture.