After months of delays, Samsung has finally launched its Bixby voice assistant in more than 200 countries worldwide. Among the countries with access to the smart assistant are the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa – although it can only understand American English and Korean. The launch will come as a huge relief to Samsung, which suffered major delays as Bixby'struggled to understand English.' It operates through'Quick Commands' – a feature that allows users to create custom voice commands. For example, users can use the command'good night' as a shortcut for'Turn on Do-not-disturb mode, set an alarm for 6:00am and turn on blue light filter.'

President Trump has shifted to a more traditional foreign policy for the conflict in Afghanistan, giving the green light to send additional troops but offering no "blank check." Here are the stories you shouldn't miss today: The nearly 17-year conflict in Afghanistan is America's longest war, one that Donald Trump, as a citizen, had long criticized. Now that he's president, Trump said in a televised address last night, that view has changed. The commander in chief wouldn't provide troop levels or timetables for the open-ended military commitment he's approved, but his advisors are seeking 4,000 more troops, a 50% increase, and increased counter-terrorism operations. "We are not nation-building again," he said.

"Han the Robot" waits on stage before a discussion about the future of humanity in a demonstration of artificial intelligence by Hanson Robotics at the RISE Technology Conference in Hong Kong on July 12, 2017. Whenever I talk to people about the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, it's clear there is a lot of anxiety surrounding these developments. And no wonder: These technologies already have a huge impact on the world of work, from AI-powered algorithms that recommend optimal routes to maximize Lyft and Uber drivers' earnings; to machine-learning systems that help optimize lists of customer leads so salespeople can be more effective. We're on the verge of tremendous transformations in the way we work. Millions of jobs will be affected and the nature of work itself may change profoundly.

Samsung has faced a tough slog getting Bixby to the masses, but now its voice assistant is accessible in more than 200 countries including the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa. It's been available in South Korea and the US since July, when it launched after months of delays. Part of Bixby's appeal is its positioning beyond that of a simple voice assistant. Samsung claims it learns over time, recognizing "natural language" to make interacting with your phone easier and more intuitive. It understands cross-application commands and thanks to deep integration it can be accessed without any interruptions to what you're already doing on-screen.

The role of data scientists will be transformed as machine learning techniques become more widely used by businesses, according to Stephen Brobst, CTO of analytics firm Teradata. While many of the principles behind'AI' approaches are not new, interest within an enterprise setting has exploded in recent years. And as usage becomes more widespread and sophisticated, the role of data scientists will begin to evolve too, according to Brobst. He explains that data scientists have typically spent much of their time'wrangling' data to feed into predictive models. In future, more of this work will be automated and data scientists will instead be more focused on selecting which machine learning or deep learning tools to utilise for specific tasks.

The world's leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics experts, including Tesla's Elon Musk and Google's Mustafa Suleyman, have urged the United Nations to take action to prevent the development of killer robots before it is too late. The letter signed by 116 experts from 26 countries opens with the words, "As companies building the technologies in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics that may be repurposed to develop autonomous weapons, we feel especially responsible in raising this alarm." Though none has been build yet, conceptually a killer robot is fully autonomous and can engage, target and kill humans without any human intervention. Unlike a cruise missile or a remotely piloted drone, where humans make all the target decisions, a quadcopter with AI, for example, can search and destroy people that meet pre-defined criteria on its own. "Retaining human control over use of force is a moral imperative and essential to promote compliance with international law, and ensure accountability," Mary Wareham, advocacy director, Arms Division, Human Rights Watch, wrote in January.

One response to the call by experts in robotics and artificial intelligence for an ban on "killer robots" ("lethal autonomous weapons systems" or Laws in the language of international treaties) is to say: shouldn't you have thought about that sooner? Figures such as Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, are among the 116 specialists calling for the ban. "We do not have long to act," they say. "Once this Pandora's box is opened, it will be hard to close." But such systems are arguably already here, such as the "unmanned combat air vehicle" Taranis developed by BAE and others, or the autonomous SGR-A1 sentry gun made by Samsung and deployed along the South Korean border.

Before autonomous trucks and taxis hit the road, manufacturers will need to solve problems far more complex than collision avoidance and navigation (see "10 Breakthrough Technologies 2017: Self-Driving Trucks"). These vehicles will have to anticipate and defend against a full spectrum of malicious attackers wielding both traditional cyberattacks and a new generation of attacks based on so-called adversarial machine learning (see "AI Fight Club Could Help Save Us from a Future of Super-Smart Cyberattacks"). As consensus grows that autonomous vehicles are just a few years away from being deployed in cities as robotic taxis, and on highways to ease the mind-numbing boredom of long-haul trucking, this risk of attack has been largely missing from the breathless coverage. It reminds me of numerous articles promoting e-mail in the early 1990s, before the newfound world of electronic communications was awash in unwanted spam. Back then, the promise of machine learning was seen as a solution to the world's spam problems. And indeed, today the problem of spam is largely solved--but it took decades for us to get here.

With Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sparring over its ethics and China announcing its intention to create a $150 billion domestic industry based on it, Artificial Intelligence is perhaps the most discussed topic in the tech news cycle. It's likely to be a talking point no matter what your favourite watering hole for tech news. Billions of dollars have been invested by VCs in AI since 2016 with the US and China leading the race in record funding in terms of deals and dollars. In sharp contrast, Indian startups have collectively raised less than $100 million from (2014-2017YTD), according to data from startup analytics firm Tracxn -- that's smaller than Andrew Ng's recently launched $150 million VC fund. Another way to look at it: Grammarly, a Valley-based spell check tool raised more dollars than all of India's AI startups put together in the past three and a half years.

Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) global report states that 68% of companies use artificial intelligence (AI) for IT functions. However, 70% believe AI's greatest impact by 2020 will be in functions outside of IT such as aspects of customer service and marketing. AI is transforming the media industry, using chatbots to deliver services and optimising media buying spends. In India, customers have been able to experience subtle interventions of AI in their day-to-day functions, such as during interactions with their handheld device or recommendations from e-commerce portals and news feeds on their social media. However, the business ecosystem in India is yet to incorporate the full effectiveness of AI.