Short delivery time, high flexibility and reduced costs for handling parts before assembly. These are the main goals that Danfoss Drives wanted to achieve by creating an automated assembly line. But while the goals were clear, the way to achieve them was cloudier. "How to do it and with what technology, we haven't decided yet. And that's what we're seeking help for", says Technology Engineer Peter Lund Andersen from Danfoss Drives.

The common conception of a technologically enabled apocalypse foresees a powerful artificial intelligence that, either deliberately or by accident, destroys human civilization. But as a new report from the RAND Corporation points out, the reality may be far subtler: As AI slowly erodes the foundations that made the Cold War possible, we may find ourselves hurtling towards all-out nuclear war. There's a "significant potential" for artificial intelligence to undermine the foundations of nuclear security, according to a new report published today by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. This grim conclusion was the product of a RAND workshop involving experts in AI, nuclear security, government, and military. The point of the workshop, which is part of RAND's Security 2040 project, was to evaluate the coming impacts of AI and advanced computing on nuclear security over the course of the next two decades.

There is a huge spectrum of opinion on the value of the Facebook data that Cambridge University academic Aleksandr Kogan gave to Cambridge Analytica's parent company, SCL. Dr Kogan told a parliamentary committee: "Given what we know now, nothing, literally nothing - the idea that this data is accurate I would say is scientifically ridiculous." On the other hand, there have been suggestions this sort of data will allow computers to gain a profound understanding of people and their preferences. In a news conference on Tuesday, Cambridge Analytica's spokesman said the company had also found Dr Kogan's data set to be "virtually useless". The orthodox view among data scientists is that the use of social media data to target adverts on Facebook is in its infancy and not yet hugely effective - but Dr Kogan is going further than that, saying that it was completely without value.

Newswire) Autonomous Research, a global research firm focused on financial services, has announced the publication of Augmented Finance and Machine Intelligence, an in-depth look at the way artificial intelligence is transforming the financial services industry. Autonomous estimates that over $1 trillion of today's financial services cost structure could be replaced by machine learning and AI. This would affect 2.5 million employees in the US alone. This shift will impact operations across all functions and segments of the financial industry, from bank tellers to portfolio managers to insurance underwriters. By 2030, Autonomous expects $490 billion in costs to be exposed to AI in distribution, $350 billion in the middle office, and $200 billion in financial product manufacturing.

The UK has a productivity problem. We're lagging well behind our European neighbours and have been for decades. Advocates of the tired theory of taking the'path of least resistance,' discourage businesses from trying anything new when a tried way of doing something is available. This goes back to the 1940s, when medical interns were told: "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras." In other words, trust the first answer to a problem that comes to mind.

Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's chair in a secret bunker outside Moscow. His job that night was simple: Monitor the computers that were sifting through data from satellites and radar, watching the United States for any sign of a missile launch. It was just after midnight, Sept. 26, 1983. A single word flashed on the screen in front of him. The fear that computers, by mistake or malice, might lead humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation has haunted imaginations since the earliest days of the Cold War.

Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's chair in a secret bunker outside Moscow. His job that night was simple: Monitor the computers that were sifting through data from satellites and radar, watching the United States for any sign of a missile launch. It was just after midnight, Sept. 26, 1983. A single word flashed on the screen in front of him. The fear that computers, by mistake or malice, might lead humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation has haunted imaginations since the earliest days of the Cold War.

This week the House of Lord's Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (AI) released a report stressing that ethics should be at the centre of AI – a report which has so far been welcomed by the IT industry. In July 2017 a 13 strong Committee was tasked to assess the economic and social impact of artificial intelligence. The aim of the cross-sector code of practice is to ensure AI is developed ethically and does not diminish the rights and opportunities of humans. The report states that AI should be developed for the "common good and benefit of humanity" and operate on principles of "intelligibility and fairness". See also: Is your artificial intelligence right for you?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) greets a robot next to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (2ndR), his wife Angelica Rivera (2ndL) and German Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek (L) on April 23, 2018 as they visit the IBG Automation stand during the Hanover Fair in Hanover, Germany. The Hanover Fair is the biggest industrial fair worldwide and runs until April 28, 2018, with Mexico as this year's partner country.

Most people are not very familiar with the concept of artificial intelligence (AI). As an illustration, when 1,500 senior business leaders in the United States in 2017 were asked about AI, only 17 percent said they were familiar with it.1 A number of them were not sure what it was or how it would affect their particular companies. They understood there was considerable potential for altering business processes, but were not clear how AI could be deployed within their own organizations. Despite its widespread lack of familiarity, AI is a technology that is transforming every walk of life. It is a wide-ranging tool that enables people to rethink how we integrate information, analyze data, and use the resulting insights to improve decisionmaking. Our hope through this comprehensive overview is to explain AI to an audience of policymakers, opinion leaders, and interested observers, and demonstrate how AI already is altering the world and raising important questions for society, the economy, and governance. In this paper, we discuss novel applications in finance, national security, health care, criminal justice, transportation, and smart cities, and address issues such as data access problems, algorithmic bias, AI ethics and transparency, and legal liability for AI decisions. We contrast the regulatory approaches of the U.S. and European Union, and close by making a number of recommendations for getting the most out of AI while still protecting important human values.2 Although there is no uniformly agreed upon definition, AI generally is thought to refer to "machines that respond to stimulation consistent with traditional responses from humans, given the human capacity for contemplation, judgment and intention."3 According to researchers Shubhendu and Vijay, these software systems "make decisions which normally require [a] human level of expertise" and help people anticipate problems or deal with issues as they come up.4 As such, they operate in an intentional, intelligent, and adaptive manner. Artificial intelligence algorithms are designed to make decisions, often using real-time data. They are unlike passive machines that are capable only of mechanical or predetermined responses. Using sensors, digital data, or remote inputs, they combine information from a variety of different sources, analyze the material instantly, and act on the insights derived from those data. With massive improvements in storage systems, processing speeds, and analytic techniques, they are capable of tremendous sophistication in analysis and decisionmaking.