This was Ben Goertzel's talk at RAADFest 2016 in San Diego, August 5, 2016 ... some hawking of the "AGI Revolution" book, some Hanson robot videos, some Genescient super-flies, and some anecdotes and evangelism about aging and death, etc. The video was taken by Zar Goertzel from the audience; a more professional video will probably be put online by RAADFest folks sometime... This also includes the panel discussion at the end of the session, with Ben and Jose' Cordeiro and Nuno Martins. David Wood is moderating the session. The dude in the robot video is Man Hin Leung, from the OpenCog team at Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong.

Some great minds, including Elon Musk, are clearly worried about Artificial Intelligence (AI). With the recent innovations like Google's self-driving car, the Hong Kong metro automating its own maintenance and computers that are able to read human emotion, this fear is understandable. Technology is finally catching up to science fiction -- but business leaders who wait until humanoid robots are walking around to begin implementing AI in their business will have missed the boat and let their competitors eat their lunch. With so many new developments in AI, the conscientious business leader should be thinking about how AI will impact their business today. AI Is Already Here Sci-fi has us looking for the wrong signs for the "arrival" of AI (e.g.

Though deals to private artificial intelligence companies -- excluding incubator/accelerator rounds -- fell 10% in Q2'16, dollar funding reached an all-time high. That was partly thanks to 3 $100M mega-rounds by companies using AI: a $154M Series A round went to China-based healthcare startup iCarbonX (with the participation of Tencent, Vcanbio), a $100M growth equity round was raised by New Jersey-based Fractal Analytics (from Khazanah Nasional Berhad), and there was a $100M Series D round raised by California-based cybersecurity unicorn Cylance (from investors including Blackstone Group, Insight Venture Partners, and Khosla Ventures). Our AI category includes companies applying AI solutions to verticals like healthcare, security, advertising, and finance as well as those developing general-purpose AI tech. Nearly 70% of the deals went to startups in the United States in Q2'16. A majority of the startups raising funds were still in their early-stages: Nearly 60% of the deals went to startups raising seed/angel and Series A rounds, while mid-stage startups (Series B and C) received 12% of the deals.

Samsung's next-generation Galaxy smartphone appears to be poised to beat Apple's upcoming iPhone 8 to the punch now that Bloomberg has corroborated much of SamMobile's report saying the Galaxy S8 will be a bezel-free device with a wraparound display featuring an in-screen Home button. The phone should be unveiled in February 2018 and launch in March. That way, the Samsung device should enjoy a six-month lead over the iPhone 8's expected fall arrival. However, the Korean giant is considering scrapping plans for a dual-camera on the Galaxy S8 due to "higher manufacturing costs", one of the sources told the news gathering organization. "Samsung will create an all-screen front for the Galaxy S8 smartphones coming out next year and scrap the physical Home button," people with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

Despite the best efforts of movies like Ex Machina, Morgan and Avengers: Age of Ultron, a new survey found that people from around the world largely see artificial intelligence having a more positive than negative impact on their lives and society in general. Communications firm Weber Shandwick has just published its "AI-Ready or Not: Artificial Intelligence Here We Come!" report, conducted with KRC Research, for marketers, surveying 2,100 consumers across five global markets on AI, its many uses, how they see it evolving, and how comfortable they are with that development. But don't go tearing up your plans for an unconnected cabin in the woods just yet, because even though consumer survey respondents were seven times more likely to see the sunny side of AI, a full one-third of respondents also admitted to knowing nothing about AI at all. The survey also interviewed 150 marketing executives (primarily CMOs) in the U.S., the U.K., and China responsible for the oversight and execution of marketing or branding activities at their organizations. On the consumer side, 77% of respondents would like AI's development to accelerate or remain at its current pace, two-thirds or more trust AI with handling medication reminders, travel directions, entertainment, targeted news, and manual labor and mechanics.

Russia has tested a terrifying new'drone' submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads unmanned within range of the US. The Royal Navy's submarine Vanguard, which carries trident missiles, is pictured Horrifying moment woman is kicked down the stairs by stranger Porsche driver causes chaos parking in middle of road to go shopping Caught on Camera: Employee brawl erupts at Waffle House Lads post the rudest mannequin challenge from "Scottish party" 'He's ruined our holiday!': 'Drunk' passengers kicked off plane Police officer filmed punching man as he's arrested in London Mom battling breast cancer says TSA violated and humiliated her Cruz listens to himself singing'If Everyday Was Christmas' Lorry driver jumps red light before killing mother and daughter Shocking moment thieves with a hammer steal a motorbike in London Shameless moment when a cameraman zooms in on starlet's breasts Jocelyn Wildenstein hides her face as she leaves court'Drunk' passengers kicked off plane Police officer filmed punching man as he's arrested in London Cruz listens to himself singing'If Everyday Was Christmas' 'Catwoman' Jocelyn Wildenstein, 76, is arrested after... Leonardo DiCaprio sneaks into Trump Tower for meeting with... Shocking moment knife-wielding student, 14, lunges at... EXCLUSIVE: Inside the'cultish' world of the Oakland inferno... Pandora apologises to bride whose husband was left... EXCLUSIVE: First picture of designer boyfriend of arrested... Get ready for the chill! Forecasters predict temperatures... Horrifying moment German thug kicks a woman in the back... Nevada student, 14, who swung a knife at his classmates... Looks like she's had a good weekend! Meghan Markle is all... EXCLUSIVE: Welcome to Scientology's'Graceland,' the... EXCLUSIVE - Harry's hasty exit: Besotted Prince leaves... Pandora apologises to bride whose husband was left... EXCLUSIVE: First picture of designer boyfriend of arrested... Get ready for the chill!

Twitter has not ruled out banning Donald Trump from Twitter after a his recent angry tweets. The President-elect's recent tweets attacked an Indianapolis factory worker called Chuck Jones. Soon after, Mr Jones received a run of abusive calls, the Washington Post reported, apparently spurred on by the tweet. That appears to potentially be in contravention of Twitter's rules on inciting abuse or harassment, and echoes situations where Twitter has opted to ban people for life. In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles 32/39 The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight.

Samsung is about to launch a new phone that will include all of the iPhone 8's biggest features. The upcoming Galaxy S7 will drop the physical home button so that the entirety of the front of the phone can be one big screen, according to reports. That will allow it to have much the same design as the one rumoured for the upcoming iPhone 8 – which is also expected to be made entirely of glass and not have any bezel. The new phone will also lose the headphone jack, according to reports. Apple dropped the headphone jack in its last iPhone, telling people to use wireless headphones instead, a decision that caused huge controversy.

IBM provided an Analytics Assessment & Insights Impact Grant to the Shenzhen CDC to help further their mission of infectious disease prevention and control, shouldering the monitoring, alarming and treatment of emergency public health events in Shenzhen for the 12 million citizenry by building a self adaptive online machine learning module that provides cognitive-based modeling for epidemic disease prediction and analysis on case number and trend. The output of this work has allowed the organization to develop prediction models to help forecast seasonal flu outbreaks and provide information to citizens on affected areas. CDC organizations across China are now considering the implementation of this solution to help track flu and other infectious diseases.

The big surprise on The Late Show Wednesday night was supposed to be Super Mario Run, Nintendo's imminent $9.99 mobile game that's out December 15 for iPhones and iPads (read TIME's hands-on here). And it was certainly cute to watch Jimmy Fallon breathlessly tap his way through a goomba-filled maze of classic platforms and pipes. But all the while, on the table between Fallon and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, sat a big yellow box with a question mark. What was under the question mark? It's the Kyoto games-maker's next big thing: a home video games console that's also a mobile tablet you can play on the go.