The two economists who today were awarded the Nobel Prize have both written extensively on the role that technology plays in economic growth, and one of them has even investigated what enthusiasts in Silicon Valley call the Singularity. We called it "the rapture of the geeks" in our special issue on the topic 10 years ago, because it envisages not merely an explosive increase in computational prowess that would greatly increase economic output but also the uploading of human minds into a kind of cosmic cloud. Thus embodied, our intellects would expand and our life spans would become godlike. That's heady stuff for an engineering culture that still can't get a smartphone battery to last all day. Of the two winners of what is technically known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, William Nordhaus was honored for research in environmental economics and Paul Romer for his work on economic growth. But though the Singularity is the ultimate in economic growth, it was Nordhaus who tackled it (although "in this area his work intersects with Romer's quite closely," writes economist Tyler Cowen, in a blog post this morning).

An attempt to sue Google over claims it collected sensitive personal data from millions of iPhone users has failed at the High Court. The claim would have seen more than four million people sue the company because of personal information that it harvested about them. But Mr Justice Warby, sitting in London, blocked the proceedings. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Can the origin of life be explained with quantum mechanics? And if so, are there quantum algorithms that could encode life itself? We're a little closer to finding out the answers to those big questions thanks to new research carried out with an IBM supercomputer. Encoding behaviours related to self-replication, mutation, interaction between individuals, and (inevitably) death, a newly created quantum algorithm has been used to show that quantum computers can indeed mimic some of the patterns of biology in the real world. This is still an early proof-of-concept prototype, but it opens the door to diving further into the relationship between quantum mechanics and the origins of life.

During the European Health Forum Gastein EHFG (3-5 October, Austria) experts discuss new regulatory and technical frameworks that are needed to ensure that Big Data and AI can be used to deliver better outcomes to patients and healthcare systems. How Big Data and AI can be a resource for health system sustainability? What are the practical options to guarantee that innovations work for us, rather than against us? Are there threats we should be aware of? Here's what Europe's leading health policy experts at the European Health Forum Gastein EHFG are saying about the health opportunities and challenges of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.

If you are planning to attend NYFW this season, here are some words of advice, make sure that you are dressed to stand out from the crowd. Well, New Balance, the athletic brand, will be using "custom-built artificial intelligence technology to identify and recognise those who stand out from the crowd." To help them spot those draped in the kind of garments that make them stand out, New Balance will be using Real Time Exception Spotting, a computer vision technology that will collect and show real-time fashion data on unsuspecting people who are identified as "defying the norm." They will do this by scanning crowds of people and using the input collected to "identify the anomalies and exceptions to the'norm.'" According to New Balance, the technology does not only identify colours and shapes, but it can also identify patterns, styles and accessories.

Ray Poynter will be presenting a paper titled'Problems in Identifying Causality in Observational Data'. This is a topic that NewMR will be exploring over the next year or so. In market research, there is a big shift taking place from questions to observations, which brings many advantages. However, there are some methodological problems and weaknesses with observational data that need to be addressed. This workshop is a one-day workshop spread over two days, with a social evening included.

This week we speak to Stan Boland, founder and chief executive of UK driverless car company Five AI. As firms around the world race to develop self-driving cars, Stan Boland is betting that British brain power can beat American and Chinese cash. A veteran technology entrepreneur, the 58-year-old launched Five AI in 2016. Since then it has been moving as quickly as possible to design a driverless car that - the hope is - will at some point in the future gain regulatory approval to take to the roads without someone being behind the wheel as a human failsafe. The problem is that, compared with US giants Google, Uber and Tesla, Five AI is a tiny start-up company with only a fraction of the funding that its rivals' driverless car projects are receiving.

AI and related technologies such as robots, drones and autonomous vehicles could provide a net boost to employment in China of around 12% over the next two decades, equating to around 90 million additional jobs. Around 26% of existing jobs in China could be automated over the next 20 years, but this is projected to be more than offset by job creation of 38%, giving an estimated net gain of 12%. Services ( 29%) and construction ( 23%) could see the largest net increases in jobs by 2037 in China, offset by estimated net job losses of around 10% in agriculture. PwC estimates that the boost from AI and related technologies to economic growth in China could create millions of new jobs, more than offsetting displacement of existing jobs. But the report argues there is no room for complacency given the projected scale of disruption to the labor market from these technologies. This new analysis for China contrasts with PwC's earlier research suggesting a broadly neutral net impact of AI and related technologies on jobs in the UK.

In Atlas Shrugged (1957), by Ayn Rand, the system falls apart to the point that the remaining producers choose to simply withdraw rather than proliferate and disrupt the society from within. "In 1995, Fukuyama argued that only those societies with a high degree of social trust would be able to create the kind of flexible, large-scale business organizations that are needed for successful competition in the global economy." Carrying proudly the responsibility of its 170 years history and legacy, a Tech Giant, an Atlas of the modern era of turbulent markets and exponentially growing challenges, the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe with its footprint in 190 countries around the globe, the German conglomerate company Siemens AG (German pronunciation: [ˈziːmɛns]) is shaping the future – the digital future. "With its Vision 2020, Siemens has recently once again clearly answered these questions: a company faces up to its responsibilities, furnishes lasting benefit and generates added value from a position of strength – for its shareholders, employees, customers, business partners and societies all over the world. Joe Kaeser, President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens AG, puts it like this: "Only the strong can help the weak, take responsibility and then fulfill it.

SAP has become the first European technology company to create an external artificial intelligence (AI) ethics advisory panel, with representatives from academia, politics and industry. The panel will ensure the adoption of the new AI guiding principles also announced by the vendor in collaboration with the AI steering committee at SAP, a group of SAP executives from development, strategy and human resources. "SAP considers the ethical use of data a core value," said Luka Mucic, chief financial officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. "We want to create software that enables the intelligent enterprise and actually improves people's lives. Such principles will serve as the basis to make AI a technology that augments human talent." SAP's guiding principles highlight core values around transparency, integrity, quality and safety in the use of AI.