I stand in the darkened silence of a rectangular chamber, 8 meters long and 6 meters wide, balanced on the tips of my toes. On the wall in front of me are the outlines of two circles. Beyond these walls is an enormous insulated hangar decked with artificial grass and filled with highly paid professional soccer players. I brace, as though waiting for the Death Star to ready its superlaser. I turn, and it takes another two touches before I've brought the ball fully under my control. A professional player would have managed it in one, and would have done so without making a sound.

Waiters, shelf stackers and people working in retail are the most likely to be replaced by automated systems in the future, according to new research into AI employment. The study, funded by trade electrical suppliers ElectricalDirect, found that while manual and repetitive tasks were easy to replace with robots, doctors and teachers were safe'for now'. The jobs most at risk from automation, according to the study, are waiters, shelf fillers, retail assistants, bar staff and farm workers. At the other end of the scale, with those in the most'secure from automation' roles are doctors, teachers, dentists, psychologists and physiotherapists. The researchers found an obvious geographical trend as well, with the north, particularly Wigan, Doncaster and Sunderland at the greatest risk from robots.

More than 100 of the world's leading experts in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ethics have signed up to be part of a new journal created by a North East professor. University of Sunderland's Pro-Vice-Chancellor John MacIntyre launches'AI and Ethics' this month alongside his co-Editor-in-Chief, Professor Larry Medsker of George Washington University in the US, and Rachel Moriarty, Publishing Editor at Springer. Five years in the making, the journal has attracted around 100 of the world's leading thinkers and practitioners in this field of study to be part of its editorial board and aims to promote informed debate and discussion of the ethical, regulatory and policy implications that arise from the development of AI. Professor MacIntyre said: "Our objective is to be useful to a wide range of audiences – the academic and scientific community, the commercial and product development community, users of AI, those developing governance and regulatory frameworks for AI, and the public. We want to provide an outlet to publish high-quality work and making it available to be used by those audiences."

Voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri will become common in children's bedrooms, according to a new report from Internet Matters, the online safety body, which says it is critical for parents to spend more time understanding new technology. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of new technology at home by "three or four years", the researchers said, and families in the UK will become much more reliant on voice-enabled devices over the next five years. The report's author, Lynne Hall, professor of computer science at the University of Sunderland, said we would even see the emergence of a range of celebrity voice assistants. "You'd have Elsa from Frozen," Hall said. "You can imagine that with every Disney film that came out there would be a new voice skin."

An affordable British-built self-driving family car that can steer and brake by itself has been launched in the UK today by Japanese car giant Nissan. It has fitted its school-run favourite Nissan Qashqai sports utility vehicle with advanced autonomous driving technology that until now has been the preserve of expensive luxury vehicles such as top of the range BMW and Mercedes-Benz models. We were among the first to try the latest model - and the autonomous driving modes - on and off-road before it hits showrooms. Britain's first semi-autonomous car: The Sunderland-built Qashqai SUV will be the first UK-assembled model designed for families that will feature a host of new driverless tech Equipped with Nissan's new'ProPilot' system, the smart Qashqai, built at its UK factory in Sunderland, can steer, accelerate and brake automatically using data supplied by a camera mounted on its windscreen and a radar behind badge on front grille. Nissan stresses that its self-driving technology is currently there to aid the driver, not to take over from him or her.

Workers in Mansfield, Sunderland and Wakefield are at the highest risk of having their jobs taken by machines, according to a report warning that automation stands to further widen the north-south divide. Outside of the south of England, one in four jobs are at risk of being replaced by advances in technology – much higher than the 18% average for wealthier locations closer to London. Struggling towns and cities in the north and the Midlands are most exposed. A total of 3.6m UK jobs could be replaced by machines. The Centre for Cities thinktank says almost one-third of the jobs in the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield, which is home to the Sports Direct warehouse, are involved in lines of work under threat as robots begin to replace humans in the years up to 2030.

Swansea's Gylfi Sigurdsson has been valued at £50m, Everton have spent £90m and Manchester United bought Romelu Lukaku for £75m - so is Newcastle boss Rafael Benitez right to call this summer's transfer window "a little bit crazy"? Premier League clubs' spending has already surpassed £500m since the end of last season - and business analysts Deloitte say they are on course to set another new record by 31 August. Teams spent a record £1.165bn last summer, rising to £1.38bn after the January window. Football finance expert Rob Wilson says the market "hyper-inflation" means anyone selling to an English club is adding "at least 40%, if not 50%, to the deal". And football agent Jon Smith says a £30m transfer - such as goalkeeper Jordan Pickford's move from Sunderland to Everton - is "the new norm".

Mumbai: As pro vice-chancellor (product and partner development) of the University of Sunderland in the UK, Prof. John MacIntyre's brief includes covering research, innovation, knowledge exchange, employer engagement and regional economy. Since 1996, MacIntyre has also been the editor-in-chief of Neural Computing and Applications--an international scientific peer- reviewed journal published by Springer Verlag. In an interview, he talks about why artificial intelligence (AI) needs to be looked at more positively and how AI can contribute to society. MacIntyre will also address EmTech India 2017--an emerging tech conference organized by Mint and MIT Technology Review--on 9 March in New Delhi. You completed your PhD in applied AI, focussing on the use of neural networks in predictive maintenance.