The fear of machines taking our jobs dates back hundreds of years, to the Luddites of England, who fought mechanical weaving tools in the early 19th century. But it has gotten new life as the combination of big data, improved algorithms, and raw computing power has rapidly accelerated artificial intelligence (AI). Some jobs, such as top levels of management, doctors and many teachers, will feel limited effect from AI and the robots and systems it powers. Many of us in the middle will see some of our tasks automated: A study by the McKinsey Global Institute, a think tank, estimates that "60 percent of occupations have at least 30 percent of constituent work activities that could be automated." And for some, the writing is on the wall: The robots will take over.

When you step off the train here and walk into the city square outside the railway station, you will not see the spires of King's College Chapel or the turrets atop the Trinity Great Court. The University of Cambridge is still a cab ride away. But you will see a stone and glass office building with a rooftop patio. This is where Amazon designs its flying drones. Just down the block, inside a stone building of its own, Microsoft is designing some sort of computer chip for artificial intelligence.

Over the decades, numerous foundational technologies have emerged from U.S. military-funded research: among them, semiconductors, cryptography, the internet, GPS and mobile phones. "They arose out of war -- or the fear of war" that characterized the Cold War era, says Will Carter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This shift in the balance of power between AI funding and development means the private sector is leading in an area with "massive national security implications," says Gregory Allen, an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The backstory: This dynamic reflects a general lack of government leadership on AI, some experts say. Unlike China, Japan, South Korea, the U.K., France, Canada, and several other countries, the U.S. has not outlined a clear national vision for AI development.

The new prosthetic hand interprets muscular signals from brain activity with machine learning to make movements more natural. Scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Göttingen have used machine learning to improve the performance of prosthetic hands. After testing their prototype on five amputees, they found that new machine learning-based control was far better at providing natural, fluid movements than the currently available technology. The researchers said the findings, which are published in Science Robotics, could spark a "new generation of prosthetic limbs." Professor Dario Farina, senior author of the paper from Imperial's Department of Bioengineering, said: "When designing bionic limbs, our main goal is to let patients control them as naturally as though they were their biological limbs. This new technology takes us a step closer to achieving this."

Stuttgart AI Gatherings are quarterly, 3 hour events for Artificial Intelligence practitioners focusing on lessons learned applying AI. Discover: 15min applied AI talks of industry peers sharing insights and actionable advice based on hands-on experiences applying AI. Check out our applied AI talks below! Share: AI Clinic sessions for practitioners to share their specific challenge applying AI gathering initial feedback from industry peers and fellow practitioners. Apply to present your individual challenge putting AI into production through this form!

The tumour is hard to miss on the scan. The size of a golf ball, it sits bold and white on the brain stem, a part of the organ that sends messages back and forth between body and brain. In many ways it is the master controller: from the top of the spinal cord, the brain stem conducts every heartbeat, every swallow, every breath. For this young man, the cancer came to light in dramatic fashion. The growing tumour blocked fluid draining from his brain, triggering a huge seizure.

Computers, artificial intelligence programs, and robots are doing more of the work that humans used to do. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the amount of technology used per unit of production doubled between 2001 and 2015.* There's no reason to believe this trend will slow anytime soon. What does that mean for jobs? Researchers from the University of Oxford estimate that 47% of U.S. jobs could be automated as soon as 2025, meaning about 70 million Americans could find themselves out of work.**

On the Fourth of July, skies will be ablaze with exploding art. Our souls will swell with splendor as we watch thousands of fireworks burst in the night, shooting up like hot comets then fanning out into brilliant umbrellas of twinkling light. There's no question that we humans love fireworks. Some of us have risked serious burns to the face and hands attempting to set them off and awe our friends. Last year, more than 250 million pounds of fireworks erupted, generating $1.2 billion in revenue, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.

Also in 2016, in December, we traveled to São Paulo, Brazil, to run the first Brazilian Summer School in Machine Learning, where 202 attendees from 6 Brazilian states came together. We completed another Machine Learning School in Brazil the year after, the BSSML17, this time in Curitiba, Paraná. We came back to Valencia in September 2017 and ran the third edition of our Valencian Summer School in Machine Learning (VSSML17) that brought together 204 attendees from 14 countries and 183 of them from Europe, mostly from Spain. Among the attendees, there were 45 from 28 universities, and 159 representing a record of 92 organizations.

London is the Artificial Intelligence (AI) capital of Europe, home to double the number of AI companies* than closest rivals Paris and Berlin combined. That is the key finding of a major piece of research commissioned by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, that for the first time maps the capital's AI ecosystem, highlighting the strength and complexity of London's AI ecosystem and its growing important to the economy. Artificial Intelligence is the ability of machines to exhibit human-like intelligence with the ability to perform tasks such as decision support, reasoning, learning, visual perception, speech recognition, and language translation. Produced for the Mayor by CognitionX, the AI advice platform, the report will help to uncover the opportunities to unlock innovation and investment in London in order to maximise the economic impact of AI on the city, and to support the Mayor's ambition to make London a world-leading Smart City. The report was published on the eve of London Tech Week – an annual event that sees the city open its doors to the international tech community.