Should robots be given'personhood' status? That was the topic being debated by the European parliament earlier this month, along with whether or not a kill switch should be added in case there is a terminator style uprising. Does this mean that robots and machines are slowly taking over? There hasn't been a machine uprising. You may be thinking that the likes of robots, smart machines and artificial intelligence is something you might only read about in Sci-Fi novels or see in films, but actually, artificial intelligence and smart machines are nothing new.

Imperial College London is the nation's most active creator of jobs in artificial intelligence (AI), according to figures released today by the world's largest job site Indeed. One in every 13 AI vacancies (7.4%) Iisted over the last 12 months on Indeed's UK site was at Imperial, with other leading academic institutions also recruiting heavily in the field. Four out of the country's top six recruiters of AI professionals are universities, with Oxford, Cambridge and University College London all competing hard for AI talent. Global tech companies, including Amazon and IBM, also appear among the top organisations advertising AI roles in the last 12 months. Britain has rapidly become a world leader in AI research and development, and the sector is set to have a starring role at this week's London Tech Week.

IOTA and Volkswagen are demonstrating a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) that uses IOTA's Tangle system for autonomous cars at the Cebit '18 Expo in Germany today, June 11th. The PoC enables Volkswagen to use IOTA's Tangle architecture to transfer software updates "over-the-air" as part of the car manufacturer's new "Connected Car" systems. Tangle is different than blockchain, in that it does not use "blocks" or mining, but rather is built upon a directed acyclic graph (DAG), a topologically ordered system in which different types of transactions run on different chains in the network simultaneously. According to the PoC press release, Volkswagen's vision is to use Tangle to securely and wirelessly distribute data within its developing smart car economy. Industry experts expect over 250 mln connected cars to be on the road by 2020, raising the need for frequent remote software updates and transparent data access on a large scale.

Not content with being Europe's leading fintech hub, London is also staking a claim to the role of the EU's Artificial Intelligence (AI) capital, home to double the number of AI companies than closest rivals Paris and Berlin combined

The average number of robots has increased by about 20% over recent years, a figure that applies both globally and to Europe. Worldwide, according to the IFR, an average of 74 robots per 10,000 employees are in use in 2016, in Europe 99. The charge is currently being led by the South Korean industry, where 631 robots can be found per 10,000 workers. Despite the nation's reputation for technological prowess, since that year, robot density in Japan has been steadily decreasing.The UK is ahead of the curve on a global basis, with 71 robots per 10,000 workers – however the nation is also well below the European average. This is despite reports suggesting that logistics robots are set to make 40% of low skilled workers in the sector obsolete, and the prediction that over 60% of all work activities could be automated by 2055 subsequently remains a distant prospect.

With the adoption and development of cognitive computing capabilities, the way customers interact with their banks will ultimately change for good. Artificial intelligence and cloud computing will empower banks to efficiently redefine the workflow, create innovative products and services, and transform customer experiences. Many banks have adopted AI, infusing it into their customer experience. This development is witness to AI's role in banking becoming increasingly crucial and visible over the next few years. The introduction of cloud computing and AI will permit the banking workforce to discard repetitive, process driven tasks towards the more strategic and innovative kinds of work that will ultimately drive the industry forward.

And the way we use them in job adverts can dictate whether or not people bother to apply. This is a big problem if you're a business trying to recruit more women and ethnic minorities into your workforce. So can tech help remove these unconscious biases? A job description that uses the phrase "We're looking for someone to manage a team" may seem innocuous enough. But research has shown that the word "manage" encourages more men than women to apply for the role.

Count Wally Rhines, semiconductor industry veteran and long-time CEO of Mentor Graphics, among the many who believe that deep-learning hardware will drive the next wave of growth for the semiconductor industry. Speaking at the GSA European Executive Forum here this week, Rhines added that memory will continue to be a key driver of the chip industry going forward. Despite the volatility of the semiconductor industry, R&D investment continues to be around 14% of revenue as it has been for the last 36 years, Rhines said, dismissing arguments put forth by some that there isn't enough being ploughed back into R&D to maintain sustained growth. On growth, we should be watching out for China, and a lot of growth will come from visual processing for AI applications, Rhines said. He offered his perspective on the future of the semiconductor industry and why revenue forecasts from research and analyst firms have been consistently off target.

Not long before Google announced it would end one part of its AI work for the U.S. military, the company's Cloud team was pitching artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to members of the U.S. special operations community, the soldiers very much at the front lines of combat in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa. The pitches were part of Google's sales work at the SOFIC convention, which draws special operators from around the world to Tampa, Florida, each May. A document distributed at a May 24 sales presentation touts Google Cloud and associated AI capabilities as useful for some of special operations forces' most important work. Defense One obtained a copy of the document. One sheet describes how the tools can help with sensitive site exploitation, or SSE.

On Love Island, the ITV2 reality television show, the female contestants have been discussing Brexit. Reassuring her, Georgia replied: "That's got nothing to do with it, babe. Anyone who watched the scene might be tempted to assume that cognitive powers are decreasing with the passage of generations. And there is empirical research to back up this dispiriting inference. A new study by two Norwegian economic researchers suggests that intelligence quotient (IQ) scores of young people born after 1975 have been in decline.