In a lagoon in Venice, robotic lily pads float on the surface, with clusters of electronic mussels resting on the bed below. In July, a self-organising team of robots will be released into the murky waters of a lagoon near Venice, Italy. To continue reading this premium article, subscribe for unlimited access. Existing subscribers, please log in with your email address to link your account access.

That new technologies could actually be bad for us, by sapping our attention or ruining our memories, is an argument that goes back to Socrates. It's tempting to summarily dismiss these concerns, but such tech-doomsaying is actually an important part of economic discovery. Our societies are organised by rules, embedded in our collective knowledge, about the proper way to behave and interact with each other. These rules are worked out over a long, often bitter process of debate and competition between rival ideas about society. Some of the most important rules we need to discover are about how to use technology and, just as importantly, how not to use it.

In the coming years "artificial intelligence (AI) will become pervasive and touch every aspect of our lives and we'll wonder how we ever did without it", explained Sonia Cooper, senior patent attorney of IP policy and strategy at Microsoft. Cooper made her prediction at Technology Patent Network Europe in London today, June 21. Speaking on a panel titled "The Outlook for AI Patents", Cooper was keen to extinguish any concerns about the role of AI in the future. She said: "When we think about AI we perhaps think about robots taking over the world, or machines getting more and more intelligent and outperforming us. The reality, of course, is quite different."

In order to improve world food conditions, a team around computer science professor Kristian Kersting was inspired by the technology behind Google News. Almost 800 million people worldwide suffer from malnutrition. In the future there could be around 9.7 billion people--around 2.2 billion more than today. Global demand for food will increase as climate change leaves more and more soil infertile. How should future generations feed themselves?

The discipline, which up until recently was restricted to academic research and applications, is finally becoming part of everyday life. They might not be able to tell you what it is, but they will know that it's permeated all sorts of industries. In education, platforms like Century are helping teachers provide more personalised education programmes and receive feedback. In the legal service industry, AI is helping lawyers to do legal searches and draft the best standard documents. In travel, companies are developing fully autonomous systems that diagnose potential problems for driverless cars and identify the most logical routes.

The media films an artificial intelligence machine named AI-MATHS in Chengdu, in China's southwest Sichuan province. A Chinese aphorism says that "the fire burns highest when everyone adds wood to it." It's an apt way to describe the way that industrial design and product development are becoming a collaborative undertaking. Cities like Shenzhen, long known as factory towns that churn out low-end toys and shoes, are embracing a new identity as creative meccas for design. This trend is gathering steam worldwide, for one main reason: design tools are starting to function less like inanimate objects and more like colleagues or assistants.

Russian scientists are developing an advanced automated submarine that will be powered by an external combustion engine, Igor Denisov, deputy director of the Foundation for Advanced Studies (FPI), revealed in an interview with Interfax, a Russian news agency. "We are planning to create an apparatus that will pass through the Northern Sea Route without floating up and without the use of nuclear power, including under the ice," Denisov said. "In order for this device to accomplish such a'feat,' its autonomy should be at least 90 days, which is already commensurate with the autonomy of modern submarines." The decision to forego the nuclear option to power the underwater vehicle was a conscious one, Denisov said, in order to make it increasingly safe. While a nuclear installation helps power submarines for uninterrupted movement throughout the world's oceans, it also puts its operational capabilities at risk.

In order to improve world food conditions, a team around computer science professor Kristian Kersting was inspired by the technology behind Google News. Almost 800 million people worldwide suffer from malnutrition. In the future there could be around 9.7 billion people - around 2.2 billion more than today. Global demand for food will increase as climate change leaves more and more soil infertile. How should future generations feed themselves?

A couple of recent events made me think it would be good to post a brief but (hopefully) balanced summary of the discussion about superintelligence. Our brains are existence proof that ordinary matter organised the right way can generate general intelligence – an intelligence which can apply itself to any domain. They were created by evolution, which is slow, messy and inefficient. It is also un-directed, although non-random. We are now employing the powerful, fast and purposeful method of science to organise different types of ordinary matter to achieve the same result.

SEOUL – Months before the first summit between the leaders of the two Koreas in 2000, South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Inc. invested $730,000 in Pyongyang's top computer lab. North Korean programmers there would develop online chess games and food recipes for Samsung to sell outside the North. Samsung quit the business as inter-Korea relations later deteriorated, and the lab -- Korea Computer Center -- was blacklisted last year for its alleged contribution to the North's weapons program. As companies from South Korea to Russia and China again look to cash in on easing tensions with Pyongyang, Samsung's now defunct businesses in Pyongyang and hundreds of similar failed joint ventures underline North Korea's status as one of the world's highest-risk investment destinations. Yet days before the historic meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, a conference in Seoul to explore investment opportunities in North Korea drew about 600 attendees.