DUBAI: With technological advances being the norm, many of the everyday tasks have slowly been replaced by computer-enabled machines, robots or automation -- from watering the plants, sweeping the floor to driving to work or checking blood sugar levels. Innovations aren't just happening on the homefront and in many companies, there has been a widespread adoption of cool new technology. Eventually, as more employers get more high-tech, a number of workers will see their jobs taken over by their non-human counterparts. In its report released on Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) identified the specific occupations that are at risk of being replaced by automated technology or artificial intelligence. Ranked highest on the list are those at the bottom of the payscale, including labourers, cleaners and helpers, garbage collectors, assemblers and food preparation assistants.

A Russian-made drone on its way to making its first parcel delivery has crashed into a wall just moments after taking off. The smash shocked local residents and regional officials who had gathered in the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude on Monday to watch the drone's maiden flight. The drone was sent to deliver a small package to a neighbouring village in the sparsely populated Buryatia region, more than 4,400km east of Moscow. Video footage showed the drone lifting off from a miniature launch pad bearing Russian Post's blue and white logo. A small crowd of spectators, present for the ceremony intended to showcase a new way to deliver mail in the region, were heard uttering expletives after the crash.

Technology used by Nasa for studying faint stars and galaxies could be used to trap poachers in a rare collaboration between astronomers and ecologists. The system combines flying drones, infra-red thermal imaging, and artificial intelligence to monitor animals at night when most poaching occurs. In an early field trial in South Africa, it was used to detect elusive riverine rabbits, one of the most endangered mammals in the world. Researchers hope in future the heat-sensitive drones will make it easier to track animals such as rhinos and spot poachers hunting them under cover of darkness. Technology for studying faint stars and galaxies could be used to trap poachers in a rare collaboration between astronomers and ecologists.

An autonomous robot will be deployed to an offshore oil and gas platform in the North Sea later this year, in a first for the sector. The £4m project's backers said the move was designed to take humans out of dangerous and dull jobs, and reinvent oil and gas as an industry of the future. Under the pilot scheme, the robot will initially be deployed at the French oil firm Total's gas plant on Shetland before being sent to join the 120 workers on the company's Alwyn platform, 440km north-east of Aberdeen. The machine, made by Austrian firm Taurob and supported on the software side by German university TU Darmstadt, will be used for visual inspections and detecting gas leaks. Rebecca Allison, asset integrity solution centre manager at the publicly-funded Oil and Gas Technology Centre, insisted autonomous robots would not be used to cut the wage burden of offshore workers who are paid a premium for working in tough, remote conditions.

In the future, if not already, the Silicon Valleys of artificial intelligence (AI) will be in China. Alibaba, China's e-commerce giant, is based in Hangzhou. And Tencent, a multinational conglomerate that is investing heavily in AI, is in Shenzhen. Tencent already has a market capitalization higher than General Electric, and Baidu is larger than General Motors. China has a chance to lead in AI because it has managed to adopt new technologies very quickly.

DeepMind Technologies Inc., the machine learning company owned by Alphabet Inc., announced today that it's opening a new artificial intelligence lab in Paris. The new lab will be headed by Remi Munos (pictured), a French native and senior researcher at DeepMind who has authored 150 research papers. In an announcement video, Munos said Paris is a perfect fit for DeepMind's next lab because the city has a thriving AI and machine learning ecosystem that's still growing. "Effectively, there are a large number of research labs in universities, engineering schools and public research centers together with a large number of AI startups who have appeared, as well as large companies that are setting themselves up," said Munos. "Joining this network is a very positive move for DeepMind, to collaborate with this scientific community in order to contribute to research and also to teach students." Frédérique Vidal, France's Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, said in a statement that DeepMind's Paris lab "demonstrates the excellence and attractiveness of the Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem in France," and she added that the country will soon establish partnerships with "the public actors of French research."

Uber barreled into autonomous driving out of fear that it could end up as the Myspace or Yahoo of ride-hailing, a company with early gargantuan success that stumbled as times changed. Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, has pursued its ambitions more cautiously, accumulating long years of research and testing before pursuing a plan to bring its technology to the public. Now, as Waymo scales up its self-driving taxi service, Uber's fear could be coming to pass. As Uber continues to reel from a fatal self-driving accident in Arizona, Waymo has confidently pushed forward -- landing a deal to build 20,000 self-driving luxury sport utility vehicles with Jaguar Land Rover on top of its plan for thousands of Chrysler hybrid minivans. Within two years, it plans to have thousands of fully autonomous taxis -- with no backup drivers behind the wheel -- on the roads, starting in Phoenix, where it is already giving test rides. The company predicts it will give 1 million robot-taxi rides a day by 2020.

While I applaud President Macron's Artificial Intelligence initiative, I don't think it goes far enough to fix the concerns that it is designed to address. It's true that France has underperformed in the development of new technology, so investing $1.5 billion in "scientific laboratories" and AI related companies is a great start. However, if the main aim is to challenge the dominance of the USA and China in the field of technology, it's not enough. There are two reasons why I say this. The first is about scale. Individual European countries don't have the firepower to compete with the world's superpowers.

Want to know why mail drones aren't ready for prime time? The Siberian town of Ulan-Ude was expecting to beam with pride as organizer Rudron/Expeditor 3M tested a postal drone in the area for the first time, but they left red-faced after the inaugural flight went spectacularly wrong. The hexacopter courier went haywire moments after takeoff, smacking into the side of a building at high speed -- as you can see in the video below, it went from technological triumph to an embarrassing pile of scrap metal in a matter of seconds. It was a costly crash, too, as the drone reportedly cost about $20,000. It's not certain what went wrong, although regional leader Alexei Tsydenov speculated to Reuters that the 100-plus WiFi signals in the area might have played a part.

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) may help us to predict the probability of life on other planets, according to a study. Researchers at Plymouth University in the UK used artificial neural networks (ANNs) to classify planets into five types, estimating a probability of life in each case, which could be used in future interstellar exploration missions. ANNs are systems that attempt to replicate the way the human brain learns. They are one of the main tools used in machine learning, and are particularly good at identifying patterns that are too complex for a biological brain to process. The team has trained the network to classify planets into five different types, based on whether they are most like the present-day Earth, the early Earth, Mars, Venus or Saturn's moon Titan.