Cécile B. Evans, How happy a Thing Can Be, 2014. The word'automation' is appearing in places that would have seemed unlikely to most people less than a decade ago: journalism, art, design or law. Robots and algorithms are being increasingly convincing at doing things just like humans. The Promise of Total Automation, an exhibition recently opened at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, looks at our troubled relationship with machines. Technical devices that were originally designed to serve and assist us and are now getting smarter and harder to control and comprehend.

A wave of innovation has made it possible for people to get their banking done without walking into a branch if they don't want to. People can now deposit checks using a smartphone or digitally fire off cash to friends using Venmo. The end result is a pretty sweet experience for consumers...but an imminent threat to people who work at bank branches. The downsizing of the bank workforce is about to accelerate as more technology takes over jobs humans used to do, according to a new Citigroup report. Another 30% of bank jobs could be lost between 2015 and 2025, mainly due to retail banking automation, Citi warned.

Humanoid robots can sense the world around them, move their bodies, and interact with people in ways that are similar to the ways that real people interact. But a robot's "human-ness" is (at least for now) all just a simulation. It's a combination of clever software, and in some cases, hardware that's designed to make it easy for us to fool ourselves into thinking that some glorified box of circuits is even a little bit like a person. We're very, very good at fooling ourselves like this, to the point where it starts to get a little weird. Researchers from Stanford University will present a paper at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association in Fukuoka, Japan, in June, with the title of "Touching a Mechanical Body: Tactile Contact With Intimate Parts of a Human-Shaped Robot is Physiologically Arousing."

As robotics and 3-D printing technologies become more accessible to home tinkerers, men are (of course) building robots of beautiful women. Anyone who's turned on a TV in the past decade shouldn't be surprised to learn that one of the first--and creepiest--examples of this development involves movie star Scarlett Johansson. News broke on Friday about a Hong Kong designer who made a robot that looks just like the award-winning actress--although Ricky Ma, the robot's creator, wouldn't name the actress he modeled the bot on, choosing instead to call it Mark 1. It took Ma eighteen months and over 50,000 to complete the project, which he constructed on his patio with a 3-D printer and software that he taught himself how to use. The question, however, is one of precedent.

South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors on Tuesday announced a plan to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based, Internet-connected car to create a new future lifestyle with a "driving, high-performing computer". The driving computer means a car will become a high-performing computer itself as the car, to be developed by Hyundai and Kia, will self-drive based on AI and connect to electronic devices while driving based on internet connectivity, Xinhua cited a joint statement as saying. The main concept of the project is a "hyper-connected and intelligent car", which means an interaction between cars home as well as home and office in addition to AI-based self-driving. To achieve the goal, the automakers will focus on four major themes, intelligent remote-controlling support service, perfect self-driving, smart traffic and mobility hub. The remote-controlling support service aims to check and examine cars on a real-time basis to detect potential emergency situations in advance.

Last week, the robots finally came for that which we humans hold most dear: Our ability to write the Great [insert country or region here] Novel. The Japan News reported, and various American outlets picked up, the news that a short novel co-written by a computer program and homo sapiens had almost won a literary prize. The prize, the Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, accepts entries written by robots, though this was reportedly the first year that any such entries had been submitted. Of several submissions written with AI programs, one entry scored a remarkable victory: It made it through a single round of screening. Okay, so "nearly won," as Bustle put it, might be a slight exaggeration of how well this artificial novelist performed.

If you like to spend time perfecting your animal impressions or if you simply forget what some animals sound like, then Google's newest feature is for you. The latest addition from the search engine giant is a library of live-recorded animals sounds that will play when you search for them. It is likely to be used mostly for parents teaching their children the sounds animals make. Google has added a library of live-recorded animals sounds that will play when you search for them. The feature can be accessed by searching'animal sounds' in Google, on a computer or the Google app on a phone.

The story of how the FBI finally tracked down notorious fugitive Lynn Cozart, using its brand-new, 1 billion facial recognition system, seems tailor-made to disarm even the staunchest of skeptics. Cozart, a former security guard in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, was convicted of deviant sexual intercourse in 1996. According to court filings, he had molested his three juvenile children, two girls and one boy, from 1984 through 1994. It wasn't until May 11, 1995, that the children's mother came forward and told the Pennsylvania State Police what Cozart had been doing. He was convicted, but he failed to show up for his sentencing hearing in April 1996. Federal agents raided his home, interviewed family members and released photos of the man to the general public. In August 2006, the Cozart case was featured in "America's Most Wanted," the national television program, under a segment titled "Ten Years of Hell for Three Children."

As robots become more life-like, questions have been raised about whether its morally acceptable to kick them, bully them or program them to kill. Taking this dilemma to the next level, researchers have studied how these machines make us feel, sexually and emotionally. Scientists programmed a human-shaped robot to ask volunteers to touch it in 13 different places. While some of these requests presented no difficulties, people were hesitant to touch'private' areas including the robot's'buttocks'. Scientists at Stanford University programmed a human-shaped robot (pictured left) to ask volunteers (pictured right) to touch it in 13 different places.

Californian researchers have established that an intimate caress of a humanoid robot can produce a physiological response in a human. They challenged volunteers with a robotic creature less than two feet high that possessed eyes, ears, torso, legs, arms and a voice – and a chat-up line rich in come-hither invitations. "Sometimes I'll ask you to touch my body and sometimes I'll ask you to point to my body," it told volunteers. It was found that a touch where the robot's buttocks or genitals would be produced a measurable response of arousal in the volunteer human, the scientists report. "Our work shows that robots are a new form of media that is particularly powerful. It shows that people respond to robots in a primitive, social way," said Jamy Li, a mechanical engineer at Stanford University in California, who led the study.