The online games were easy–until I got to challenge number six. I was applying for a job at Unilever, the consumer-goods behemoth behind Axe Body Spray and Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise. I was halfway through a series of puzzles designed to test 90 cognitive and emotional traits, everything from my memory and planning speed to my focus and appetite for risk. A machine had already scrutinized my application to determine whether I was fit to reach even this test-taking stage. Now, as I sat at my laptop, scratching my head over a probability game that involved wagering varying amounts of virtual money on whether I could hit my space bar five times within three seconds or 60 times within 12 seconds, an algorithm custom-built for Unilever analyzed my every click. I furiously stabbed at my keyboard, my chances of joining one of the world's largest employers literally at my fingertips.

The UAE has signed a partnership with India to develop artificial intelligence (AI) with plans to generate an $20bn in economic benefits during the next decade. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the India – UAE Artificial Intelligence Bridge will "spur discussion and explore options for both countries to grow their AI economies", a statement said. AI is expected to maximise the efficiency and delivery of government services while also boosting the effectiveness of the private sector. The UAE-India collaboration will seek to evaluate the dynamic nature of AI by convening a joint working committee between the UAE Ministry for Artificial Intelligence, Invest India and Startup India. The committee will meet once a year with the mandate to increase investment in AI startups and research activities in partnership with the private sector.

Much of the debate over how artificial intelligence (AI) will affect geopolitics focuses on the emerging arms race between Washington and Beijing, as well as investments by major military powers like Russia. And to be sure, breakthroughs are happening at a rapid pace in the United States and China. But while an arms race between superpowers is riveting, AI development outside of the major powers, even where advances are less pronounced, could also have a profound impact on our world. The way smaller countries choose to use and invest in AI will affect their own power and status in the international system. Middle powers--countries like Australia, France, Singapore, and South Korea--are generally prosperous and technologically advanced, with small-to-medium-sized populations.

The futuristic restaurant concept is the latest initiative in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's push to modernise service and retail in a country where robotics and artificial intelligence are increasingly being integrated into commerce. Raising efficiency and lowering labour costs are the objectives at Alibaba's "Robot.He" diners, where waiters have been replaced by robots about the size of microwave ovens, which roll around the dining room on table-high runways. And two shifts of people are needed," said Cao Haitao, the Alibaba product manager who developed the concept. "But we don't need two shifts for robots and they are on duty every day." The diners are attached to Alibaba's new Hema chain of semi-automated supermarkets, where grocery shoppers fill their "carts" on a mobile app and have the merchandise brought to them at checkout via conveyor tracks on the ceiling, or delivered straight to their homes. Alibaba now has 57 Hema markets in 13 Chinese cities, all of which will eventually feature the robotic restaurants. Industry experts say they serve more as showcases of Alibaba's tech prowess than a serious business model in a country where labour costs are relatively low. But the restaurants also typify the rapid adoption of new technologies in a country where the government is increasingly using facial-recognition technology to police streets and identify law-breakers. With digital payments via mobile phone already now rivalling cash for many purchases, growing numbers of pharmacies, bookstores and other retailers have dispensed with cashiers, allowing customers to order and pay for their desired merchandise, which is often handed over by a robot. Alibaba's e-commerce rival JD.com has announced plans to open 1,000 restaurants by 2020 in which food will be prepared and served by robots. JD.com and others are also working to incorporate airborne drones into their delivery networks. The movement could help companies reduce costs as growth rates in China's e-commerce boom begin to plateau. "Before, everyone was all going for rapid expansion.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally different than any other technology we have ever created because it has the ability to learn and improve its own functions. It isn't always correct and it often compounds biases but these powerful technologies connect and reveal patterns that we've never seen before. AI technologies will be able to connect to vast datastores, for types of data that doesn't even exist today, to alert us to opportunities and dangers alike, and often to act on these automatically. We cannot foresee just how big the impact of these systems are and that's both a concern and an aspiration. Technology does not improve arithmetically; it improves exponentially.

Fifty years ago this month, in the midst of the Cold War, nations began signing an international treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Today, as artificial intelligence and machine learning reshape every aspect of our lives, the world confronts a challenge of similar magnitude, and it needs a similar response. There is a danger in pushing the parallel between nuclear weapons and AI too far. But the greater risk lies in ignoring the consequences of unleashing technologies whose goals are neither predictable nor aligned with our values. The immediate prelude to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

A top Defense Department tech official on Tuesday said the Pentagon is weeks away from publishing its first broad strategy for artificial intelligence. The department plans to release a report detailing its long-term plans for artificial intelligence "within weeks" as leaders increasingly stress the technology's potential to strengthen national security, said Thomas Michelli, the department's acting deputy chief information officer for cybersecurity. Though he didn't disclose specifics regarding the strategy, Michelli said the Pentagon is standing up a number of artificial intelligence capabilities across the enterprise and people should expect "a big announcement" in the weeks to come. The department's updated cyber strategy, which is scheduled to publish shortly before the artificial intelligence plan, will also discuss AI and offer more details on how the military is funneling additional resources into the technology, according to Michelli. "We have to move forward or else we'll lose [our] competitive advantage," he said at a forum hosted by GovernmentCIO Media.

Two University of Washington professors described this phenomenon in a 2014 research paper. 'Accurate perception of surface reflectance poses a significant computational problem for the visual system,' professors Maria Pereverzeva and Scott O. Murray, who authored the study, explained. 'The amount of light reflected by a surface is affected by a combination of factors including the surface's reflectance properties and illumination conditions. Other factors, such as the amount of light reflected by a surface, the orientation of the surface and whether or not it's 3D can affect our lightness perception of a given image Optical illusions arrange a series of patterns, images and colors or play with the way an object is lit in order to trick our brains into thinking something is there – when it is not. When light hits our retina, it takes about one-tenth of a second for our brain to translate that signal into perception, reports Discovery News.

Employees at Google are protesting the company's work on a censored search engine for China, the New York Times reports, signing a letter that calls for more transparency and questions the move's ethics. Reports of the search engine surfaced earlier this month, leaving many to wonder how the company could justify it after publicly pulling its Chinese search engine in 2010 due to the country's censorship practices. The letter, which is circulating on Google's internal communications system, has been signed by approximately 1,000 employees, according to the New York Times' sources. "We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we're building," the letter said. It also asked the company to let employees be a part of ethics reviews and publish ethical assessments of projects that are seen as controversial.

Slack, the workplace messaging app, has stopped working. Users are finding themselves unable to send or receive messages – or really see anything at all. Slack's status page does not show the issue. But it is being widely reported across the internet and has been verified by The Independent. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.