Humans' time may have run out and artificial intelligence could be about to take our place on Earth, according to James Lovelock. The leading environmental thinker, who became famous for Gaia theory and is soon to turn 100, said that the Earth was in dire trouble and could soon experience intense climate-related disasters. But he still believes himself to be an optimist and thinks that new kinds of life, in the form of AI, will be ready to take over from humans. Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050.

Why are so many AI researchers so worried about lethal autonomous weapons? What makes autonomous weapons so much worse than any other weapons we have today? And why is it so hard for countries to come to a consensus about autonomous weapons? Not surprisingly, the short answer is: it's complicated. In this month's podcast, Ariel spoke with experts from a variety of perspectives on the current status of LAWS, where we are headed, and the feasibility of banning these weapons. Guests include ex-Pentagon advisor Paul Scharre (3:40), artificial intelligence professor Toby Walsh (40:51), Article 36 founder Richard Moyes (53:30), Campaign to Stop Killer Robots founders Mary Wareham and Bonnie Docherty (1:03:38), and ethicist and co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, Peter Asaro (1:32:39). You can listen to the podcast above, and read the full transcript below. You can check out previous podcasts on SoundCloud, iTunes, GooglePlay, and Stitcher. If you work with ...

These are among the most perilous of environments on planet Earth, places where few humans dare tread. They ain't got nothin', though, on waters of our planet's polar regions, where frigid temperatures and considerable pressures would snuff a puny human like you in a heartbeat. This is the stuff their tough-as-hell bodies were made for. But it comes at a price: Getting the bot back to its icebreaking boat alive can be more challenging than communicating with a Mars rover millions of miles away. Seabed doesn't swim like your typical autonomous underwater vehicle.

This Saturday, the Robot Film Festival is taking place in Portland, Ore. This is the 8th year of the festival, and after bouncing around between San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles, the festival has (at least temporarily) settled on the greatest city on Earth (and coincidentally my hometown), Portland. The theme this year is "Vintage Arcade Revival," celebrating the culture and technology of the 1980s. Or at least, celebrating what passed for culture and technology back then. I'll be giving a short introductory talk to help kick off the film festival, about the progress we've seen in social home robots from the 1980s to today.

SYDNEY – Australia will invest 7 billion Australian dollars ($5.2 billion) to develop and buy high-tech U.S. drones for joint military operations and to monitor waters including the South China Sea, it said Tuesday. Canberra has been embarking on its largest peacetime naval investment through a massive shipbuilding strategy that includes new submarines, offshore patrol vessels and frigates to shore up its defense capabilities. As part of this, the government will spend AU$1.4 billion to buy the first of six MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drones, with the aircraft to enter service from mid-2023, complementing seven P-8A Poseidon planes currently in use. "Together these aircraft will significantly enhance our anti-submarine warfare and maritime strike capability, as well as our search and rescue capability," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement. "This investment will protect our borders and make our region more secure."

When University of Delaware molecular biologist Adam Marsh was studying the DNA of worms living in Antarctica's frigid seas to understand how the organisms managed to survive--and thrive--in the extremely harsh polar environment, he never imagined his work might one day have a human connection. But it turns out that the genome of these Antarctic worms is very similar to ours in terms of the number and types of genes present. And the pioneering technique Marsh developed to analyze their genetic activity is proving valuable for human health care research. Marsh and a business partner established a biotechnology company to make that technique available for such study. Specifically, Marsh's method uses next-generation genetic sequencing data to measure how cells control the way genes are turned on or off, a process known as DNA methylation.

The mystery of a strange Martian rock formation that has baffled scientists for decades has now been solved. Since its discovery in the 1960s, researchres have been trying to work out exactly what causes the undulating hills and sharp ridges of the Medusae Fossae formation. The formation covers an area of about 2 million sq km (770,000 sq miles) around the Martian equator and is described by Nasa as an'enigmatic pile of eroding sediments'. In the absence of any scientific explanation, conspiracy theorists have said that at least some of the exotic shapes found in the area belong to a'crashed UFO'. But a new study claims the rocks in this area of Mars are in fact the remains of volcanic eruptions that would have changed the climate of the red planet 3 billion years ago.

Apple used its strongest Attenborough voice to poke a little fun at its 2018 WWDC attendees on Monday. The keynote's opening video called back to last year's mega-hit BBC documentary series Planet Earth II and provides the viewing public, for perhaps the first time, a look into the migratory and social habits of the elusive Developer tritorapsis. Nature is a cruel and unforgiving mistress, to be sure, but not nearly as cruel as Apple's PR department is in this promotional video. According to Apple, D. tritorapsis is a unique species of the Developer genus. They're found on every continent worldwide, save for Antarctica, and exhibit a wide range of morphologies specifically adapted to their local programming environments.

The Hong Kong's Civil Aviation Authority (HKCAA) suggests that UAV users may need to register their drones with authorities, undertake training, pass tests and meet certain insurance requirements. As per the new rules, drone weighing over 9 ounces would need to be registered and the operators need to undertake short web-based training. But before making any changes, Hong Kong needs to go through a three month period of public consultation. The proposal will also include making certain parts of the island into no-fly zones. Still, there are number of countries that require proper registration and a license to fly.

There are three big questions about artificial intelligence and its impact on society: What can it do? And how fast will it spread? Experts are working to definitively answer each of those questions, but there is no doubt that AI will be transformative. McKinsey estimates that up to one third of the American workforce will have to switch to new occupations by 2030. Those figures are unsettling, but AI does not come without a plethora of positives.