Throughout history military leaders have suffered through the "fog of war," where they desperately sought answers to six key questions: These "unknowns" impacted the strategies and tactics military leaders employed. Their time and energy as leaders were heavily focused on defending themselves against these unknowns. But while military leaders of the past were limited by human constraints of perception and location, that's no longer the case today. With sensors, wireless networks, mobile technologies and analytics and artificial intelligence the "fog of war" can be greatly reduced. Precise real-time data from around the globe can be instantly aggregated, analyzed and results reported.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is headed to the United States where he is likely to meet the pioneers of research on Artificial Intelligence (AI), the science of making machines that think like humans. Gandhi, who recently returned from Norway, is gearing up for another offshore visit, this time to the Silicon Valley in the US to "expand his thoughts about artificial intelligence", party sources here said. The sources said Gandhi wants India to lead in the niche area which comes after software development, in which India has already won global recognition. While AI is still a nascent subject to most in India, many countries including China have begun investments in the area to strengthen research in it. A senior Congress leader said the idea was to bring back knowledge and implement it at the policy level in the Congress party's vision documents.

"Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world," Russian President Vladimir Putin said. However, the president said he would not like to see anyone "monopolize" the field. "If we become leaders in this area, we will share this know-how with entire world, the same way we share our nuclear technologies today," he told students from across Russia via satellite link-up, speaking from the Yaroslavl region.

They are cute up to a point, but once they become a bit too realistic, they often start to creep us out – a foible called the uncanny valley. Now Facebook wants robots to climb their way out of it. Researchers at Facebook's AI lab have developed an expressive bot, an animation controlled by an artificially intelligent algorithm. The algorithm was trained on hundreds of videos of Skype conversations, so that it could learn and then mimic how humans adjust their expressions in response to each other. In tests, it successfully passed as human-like.

Telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. looks set to join the increasingly competitive artificial intelligence sector, following in the footsteps of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA] and tech juggernaut Tencent Holdings Ltd. [HKG:0700]. Huawei will team up with Nvidia Corp. [NASDAQ:NVDA], a world leader in visual computing, to build a public platform for artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning. The telecoms giant is likely to unveil the details of the partnership at Huawei Connect 2017, which is being held in Shanghai from Sept. 5 through Sept. 7. Huawei positions the platform as one that will provide a revolutionary cloud experience by uniting with other industries and building a public cloud AI engine. China has a fairly large market which is home to a number of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, Ashok Pandey, vice president of Nvidia said about the firm's partnership with Alibaba Cloud, which began last year. Nvidia can't cover every corner of the market, but teaming up with Alibaba helps cover a greater audience, he added.

BENGALURU MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is creating a product brand for its artificial intelligence (AI) product Ignio and has hired from US companies to drive sales of the standalone product, a move that analysts say is akin to building a software company with a different model to its traditional services. The company is working to ensure the Ignio brand is a standalone -- with a separate website that has minimal TCS branding. Digitate, the unit that houses Ignio, is only once referred to as a TCS venture. "If you want to sell Ignio as a product, you have to create a product brand. TCS as a services brand is humongous. We have to make sure that the product can stand on its own. It is deeply embedded in TCS, but from sales and branding perspective, you have to create an identity," Harrick Vin, global head of Digitate, told ETin an interview.

Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX's CEO wasn't making doomsday predictions because North Korea is testing nuclear weapons. What's got Musk much more worried about world war is artificial intelligence. North Korea "should be low on our list of concerns for civilizational existential risk," Musk said in one of a series of posts on Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) early Monday. "Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo," Musk said in another tweet, using the Internet short-hand for "in my opinion." The dire prediction was in response to a recent comment from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Wizer's artificial intelligence technology can perform the work of human consumer research experts in building and analyzing consumer research, providing their customers with fast and affordable market insights AI-based SaaS consumer research company Wizer has announced the completion of the company's $4 million Series A Round. The funding was led by SOMV (State of Mind Ventures), a venture capital fund focusing on technology infrastructure. Nielsen Innovate, the early stage investment arm of Nielsen, participated in this round as well. To date, the company has raised $5.5 million, including $1.5 million in seed funding from YJ2, an investment fund backed by the Yahoo Japan Corporation, Nielsen Innovate, Barinboim Group, and the Israel Chief Scientist. Wizer provides marketers and agencies with comprehensive end-to-end market research solutions for brand positioning, product and concept testing, advertising effectiveness measurement, and more, utilizing proprietary artificial intelligence technology to deliver insightful client-ready research, quickly and affordably.

Facilitating Rahul Gandhi's US visit is the chairman of Overseas Congress, Sam Pitroda.

A heated debate is currently underway within the scientific community about AI, with some claiming that it can be used to benefit humanity, while others claim it could lead to the end of modern civilisation. South African businessman and SpaceX leader Elon Musk has been one of the more outspoken critics of AI, describing it as the "biggest risk we face as a civilisation." Others, however, have said that it will be a positive, with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg saying that "If you're arguing against AI, then you're arguing against safer cars that aren't going to have accidents. I just don't see how, in good conscience, some people can do that." However, as President Putin wades into the debate, experts will surely be worried following his ominous warning.