From driverless cars to smartphone apps offering instant translation, the evidence of rapid progress in artificial intelligence is now clear to see. Two tech giants, Facebook and Baidu, are spending heavily on artificial intelligence research. We meet the man who was among the first to predict just how disruptive the automation revolution was going to be. Erik's Automation Anxiety When a book called The Second Machine Age was published in 2014, it had a far greater impact than most academic works. But the timing of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's book about the wave of automation sweeping through the workplace was perfect, as the world woke up to the rapid progress of computing and robotics and grew anxious about it.

Due to the recent achievements of artificial neural networks across many different tasks (such as face recognition, object detection and Go), deep learning has become extremely popular. This post aims to be a starting point for those interested in learning more about it. If you already have a basic understanding of linear algebra, calculus, probability and programming: I recommend starting with Stanford's CS231n. The course notes are comprehensive and well-written. The slides for each lesson are also available, and even though the accompanying videos were removed from the official site, re-uploads are quite easy to find online.

A future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) AI system is installed this month. Maintaining it will cost about 15m yen (£100k) a year. The move is unlikely to be welcomed, however, by 34 employees who will be made redundant by the end of March.

The chronic neurological condition called Alzheimer's disease is one of the more insidious in modern society. In 2015, some 30 million were thought to have this disease. As a hugely expensive condition to manage, this places significant burdens on health-care systems all over the world. Although there is no known way to halt the disease in advanced cases, there is evidence that its progression can be slowed or halted if it is identified early. So finding a reliable way to spot people who are at risk of developing the disease is an important goal.

How do babies learn things in the first few years of their lives? They observe and imitate everyone around them. If Mummy is stacking blocks that keep toppling over, Junior can still get what she is trying to do, even though she doesn't succeed. Just like human babies, computers can teach themselves. This field is called machine learning, and it has become a big trend in the public sector.

The maker of Realdoll wants you to fall in love with its robot sex assistants. Abyss Creations has been working on robotic sex dolls that form'real emotional bonds' with their owners. Over the weekend, it released Harmony AI, an app that gives its silicone Realdolls a'brain' capable of forming relationships with humans. Abyss Creations has been working on a robotic sex doll that will form a'real emotional bond' with its owner. Over the weekend, it released Harmony AI, an app that gives its silicone Realdolls (pictured is Harmony 2.0) a'brain' capable of forming relationships with humans As well as the app, last month Abyss Creations revealed a AI doll named Harmony 2.0.

Chinese billionaire has said that the world's best CEO will be a robot within the next 30 years. The 52-year-old founder of Alibaba - China's equivalent of eBay and the world's largest retail platform - warned that robots will bring'far more pain than happiness' in the next three decades. But he added that artificial intelligence will ultimately improve our everyday lives. Self-made billionaire and China's second richest man Jack Ma (pictured) has warned that robots rule over the world's biggest companies within 30 years Ma, who is worth £22.8 billion ($28.4 billion), said that advances in technology will render CEOs irrelevant within the next 30 years. 'In 30 years, a robot will likely be on the cover of Time Magazine as the best CEO,' Ma said in a speech over the weekend at an entrepreneurship conference in central China, according to CNN.

China is talking with the European Space Agency about collaborating on a human settlement on the moon. The secretary general for China's space agency, Tian Yulong, disclosed the talks today in Chinese state media. The ESA has previously described its'Moon Village' as a potential international launching pad for future missions to Mars. China is talking with the European Space Agency about collaborating on a human settlement on the moon. Pictured is an artist's illustration released by the ESA last year The European Space Agency's CEO Jan Woerner said the project could allow exploration of the far side of the moon.

China's talking robot Jia Jia had a dismal first interview in English where she forgot where the Great Wall of China was. The mechanical marvel has been sent back to humanoid school to hone her skills after stumbling over basic words and phrases during the Skype interview. Jia Jia was unable to respond to basic questions about the number of letters in the alphabet or describe the American journalist she was talking to. Chinese robot Jia Jia (right) was interviewed by Kevin Kelly (left) co-founder of Wired magazine over Skype but the mechanical marvel's conversation was not coherent It took the team three years to complete the robot, which can speak, show micro-expressions, move its lips and body, yet seems to hold its head in a submissive manner. The humanoid is programmed to recognise human/machine interaction, has autonomous position and navigation and offers services based on cloud technology. This humanoid has natural eye movement, speech that is in sync with its lip movement and refers to its male creators as'lords'.

At just 5ft, they may not seem like the most imposing security guards, but they could soon be patrolling shopping centres around the world. The Knightscope K5 robots are the creation of a Silicon Valley startup firm and have been specially designed for fighting crime. And the company says it has just signed a deal which will see the droids roll out across 16 cities. Knightscope has just signed a deal which will see its K5 security droids (pictured) roll out to shopping malls across 16 cities in the United States. The K5 crime-fighting robots are 5ft tall and come with GPS, lasers, and heat-detecting technology.