I just asked a bot to tell me how much I spent on coffee this past month. And a few moments later, it replied. Certainly, I drink an awful lot of coffee. After asking the bot for a bit more information, I can happily say I spent at least some of that nearly two hundred dollars on chopped fruit and the occasional pastry. The bot didn't actually explain this, but it did give me list all payments to coffee shops, which made things clear.

A sinister threat is brewing deep inside the technology laboratories of Silicon Valley, according to Professor Stephen Hawking. Artificial Intelligence, disguised as helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, is gaining a foothold, and it could one day spell the end for mankind. The world-renowned professor has warned robots could evolve faster than humans and their goals will be unpredictable. Professor Stephen Hawking (pictured) claimed AI would be difficult to stop if the appropriate safeguards are not in place. During a talk in Cannes, Google's chairman Eric Schmidt said AI will be developed for the benefit of humanity and there will be systems in place in case anything goes awry.

Thousands of openings in artificial intelligence and machine learning posted on job boards are going unfilled. In fact, though AI is one of the fastest-growing areas for high-tech professionals, according to a recent Kiplinger report, there are too few qualified engineers. "Supply is far lower than demand," says Boris Babenko, a machine vision engineer at Orbital Insight, a company in Palo Alto, Calif., that uses AI to make sense of data gathered from satellite images. "That's true of all software engineering, but AI is a niche on top of that." The need for AI specialists exists in just about every field as companies seek to give computers the ability to think, learn, and adapt.

IBM Watson Health is extending net to supply its artificial intelligence system by coming up with a 16-member international unit of health systems, academic medical centers and imaging technology companies to boost the development speed of products that diagnose patients rightly in the first time. IBM said that ranging from rural America's hospitals and academic medical centers in the inner city to Europe and Japan's imaging companies the collaborative will expand its effort to spot the major problems of the healthcare in'real-life' settings in daily practice. The Watson Health business presently has data on nearly 300 million patients and the collaborative is going to help record the experience of doctors and imaging centers working with numerous distinct diseases and imaging equipment used in the treatment of patients. In an interview, Steven Tolle, chief strategy officer for Watson Health Imaging, said that the collaborative is going to assist doctors in addressing different cancers such as breast and lung and also eye health, diabetes, and brain and heart diseases. Further, Tolle gave assurance to IBM Watson's observers that the collaborative is going to be wider than its rivals. While speaking about IBM Watson rivals, Tolle said, "They partner with one partner and go after one disease.

The European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has urged the UK to "clarify its position" on Brexit as soon as possible "so we can get on with it. Nigel Farage accuses David Cameron and Boris Johnson of'backsliding' on Brexit German leaders furious at UK's reluctance to invoke Article 50 Diane Abbott stands by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as he addresses supporters outside parliament. "Don't let Scotland down," SNP urges EU parliament BRUSSELS, June 28 (Reuters) - Scotland voted to remain in the European Union last week and is counting on help from the EU to protect it from Brexit, a pro-independence Scottish lawmaker said on Tuesday, winning a standing ovation in the European ... Brexit: Asian leaders ready stimulus packages after Britain's vote to leave EU The Brexit vote continues to reverberate in Japan and other Asian financial centres. The European Commission in Ireland has moved to calm concerns that English may no longer be an official language at the European Union. England vs Iceland: Gary Lineker labels Euro 2016 loss'the worst in our history' while Alan Shearer wants England job Playing a country which boasts a population of little over 320,000 people, England were expected to cruise past Iceland and set-up a Euro 2016 quarter-final clash against tournament hosts France, but it wasn't to be. MOSCOW (AP) - The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday it will take time to mend ties with Turkey after the November downing of a Russian military jet. ANKARA/JERUSALEM, June 28 (Reuters) - Turkey and Israel signed a deal on Tuesday to restore ties after a six-year rift, formalising an agreement which U.N. Lebanon's army has detained more than 100 Syrians for entering the country illegally following a series of suicide bombings in a border village. Victor Jara was killed in 1973 in the opening days of the dictatorship of Gen Augusto Pinochet. UKIP leader Nigel Farage was booed in the European Parliament as he called on the EU to take a "grown up and sensible" attitude to negotiations with the UK while at the same time insulting MEPs, claiming virtually none of them have ever done a "proper ... Let's not stop at Brexit.

Professor Stephen Hawking says he believes pollution and human "stupidity" remain the biggest threats to mankind, while also expressing his concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in warfare. The world's leading theoretical physicist argued "we have certainly not become less greedy or less stupid" in our treatment of the environment over the past decade, during an interview on Larry King Now, which is hosted on Ora TV. Professor Hawking said: "Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding, they have gotten worse since then. The population has grown by half a billion since our last interview, with no end in sight. "At this rate, it will be eleven billion by 2100.

CANNES: Planners need to embrace emerging data opportunities such as artificial intelligence (AI), but must also stick to tried and true research techniques, and consider the ever-present need to prove their value to clients, Warc's 2016 'Future of Strategy' debate has suggested. The panel session at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity included Sandy Thompson, global planning director at Y&R, Chris Stephenson, APAC head of strategy at PHD Singapore, and Debbie Weinstein, managing director of brand solutions and innovation at Google. It was moderated by Adam Ferrier, the global CSO of Cummins&Partners. "There are a lot more analytics and statistics involved in strategy," said Weinstein. "In the future, it might be robots and AI, [though] right now it's a data scientist looking at the data."

In 1942, Russian science fiction writer Isaac Asimov drew up his'Three Laws of Robotics': 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. For 75 years, these clauses have inspired research and thinking on robot rights. They were even taken up in the first'Ethics Charter for Robots' drawn up by South Korea in 2007. However, today Asimov's laws seem rather simplistic and obsolete as they are centred on humans rather than robots. Nowadays ethics and the rights of machines are starting to go further.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gathering pace as one of the biggest ICT trends of our time – and the topic of "robot journalism" provides important insight on how AI is being applied to industry. How is natural language generation (NLG) being used to explain big data in narrative form that broader audiences can easily understand? What insights are being found by machines producing 2,000 articles per second? How are some of the world's biggest media agencies currently using vendors that provide these solutions to build their reach, engagement, and businesses? Will "robots" (or automated content) soon render journalists obsolete?

Hisashi Taniguchi used a sabbatical from developing software for driverless taxis and drones to take a pilgrimage to a Buddhist temple in western Japan. He shaved his head, donned black robes and studied to become its leader. He passed the test, yet within a week was back at the Tokyo offices of ZMP Inc., overseeing his robotics company in the more typical garb of jeans and red Converse sneakers. As ZMP's founder and chief executive officer, he tries to sync millenniums-old teachings with efforts to make artificial intelligence part of everyday life. "The temple teaches you that if you shine, you'll shed light on those around you," Taniguchi, 52, said.