On Tuesday evening a robot took the stage of the Verdi Theater in Pisa, Italy. The robot was there to conduct the Lucca Philharmonic orchestra for three of the 18 arrangements that night. The event was part of the International Robotics Festival there. The robot was created by the Swiss company ABB and its name, YuMi, stands for "You and Me." The description of the bot says it's "working together to create endless possibilities." It was introduced to the market in 2015.

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, left, performs Giuseppe Verdi's opera "La Donna e' Mobile", on stage next to the robot YuMi conducting the Lucca Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Verdi Theater, in Pisa, Italy, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017. A world famous tenor, a celebrated orchestra and a robot conductor were the highlight of Pisa's inaugural International Robotics Festival which runs from Sept. 7 to Sept. 13.

Self-driving cars may not hit the road in earnest for many years -- but autonomous boats could be just around the pier. Spurred in part by the auto industry's race to build driverless vehicles, marine innovators are building automated ferry boats for Amsterdam canals, cargo ships that can steer themselves through Norwegian fjords and remote-controlled ships to carry containers across the Atlantic and Pacific. The first such autonomous ships could be in operation within three years. One experimental workboat spent this summer dodging tall ships and tankers in Boston Harbor, outfitted with sensors and self-navigating software and emblazoned with the words "unmanned vessel" across its aluminum hull. "We're in full autonomy now," said Jeff Gawrys, a marine technician for Boston startup Sea Machines Robotics, sitting at the helm as the boat floated through a harbor channel.

British warships will soon integrate Siri-like voice systems into their controls, according to the head of the UK's Royal Navy. Speaking at the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition -- one the biggest arms fairs in the world -- First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Phillip Jones said the Royal Navy wanted to embrace the speed at which warfare is being transformed by IT, and pointed to new Type-31 frigates as an example. "The Type 31e will feature different app-based tools which can access the ship's data. These will be operated from a series of touchscreen displays, Siri-style voice-controlled assistants and perhaps even augmented reality technology," Jones said. "This is not a gimmick or a fad. As modern warfare becomes ever faster, and ever more data driven, our greatest asset will be the ability to cut through the deluge of information to think and act decisively."

Alfred North Whitehead, a noteworthy mathematician and philosopher throughout the industrial revolution once said that "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them." Interestingly, even though they were made over 200 years ago, Whitehead's comments are as relevant today as they were when they first helped shape the course of modern industrialisation. Today, society is on the precipice of a new era of digital disruption. Powered by artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, the AI-first world promises to bring about powerful opportunities and capabilities to those who embrace it early. However, while new Avanade research shows that 86% of global business leaders believe their organization must successfully deploy intelligent automation solutions in the next five years to be a leader in their field, an overwhelming majority (79%) of these business leaders agree that internal resistance to change is limiting the implementation of AI technologies in their workplace.

Patients may one day be diagnosed by computers, not doctors, according to health secretary Jeremy Hunt. Mr Hunt said: 'So what might medicine look like when the NHS is 80 [in 2028]? Well, the first thing is we may well not be going to doctors for a diagnosis, we might be going to computers instead'. Artificial intelligence could help in diagnosing patients by analysing X-rays and samples to determine conditions such as cancer, according to NHS England bosses. In as little as a decade's time, patients may even be diagnosed with disorders before they develop symptoms as DNA screening is set to become accessible to the masses, Mr Hunt said.

Self-driving cars may not hit the road in earnest for many years - but autonomous boats could be just around the pier. Spurred in part by the car industry's race to build driverless vehicles, marine innovators are building automated ferry boats for Amsterdam canals, cargo ships that can steer themselves through Norwegian fjords and remote-controlled ships to carry containers across the Atlantic and Pacific. The first such autonomous ships could be in operation within three years. One experimental workboat spent this summer dodging tall ships and tankers in Boston Harbor, outfitted with sensors and self-navigating software and emblazoned with the words "UNMANNED VESSEL" across its aluminum hull. "We're in full autonomy now," said Jeff Gawrys, a marine technician for Boston startup Sea Machines Robotics, sitting at the helm as the boat floated through a harbor channel.

The longest amount of time that a spacecraft has survived on the surface of Venus is 127 minutes. On March 1, 1982, the USSR's Venera 13 probe parachuted to a gentle landing and managed to keep operating for just over two hours by hiding all of its computers inside of a hermetically sealed titanium pressure vessel that was pre-cooled in orbit. The surface temperature on Venus averages 464 C (867 F), which is hotter than the surface of Mercury (the closest planet to the sun), and hot enough that conventional electronics simply will not work. It's not just the temperature that makes Venus a particularly nasty place for computers--the pressure at the surface is around 90 atmospheres, equivalent to the pressure 3,000 feet down in Earth's ocean. And while you can be relieved that the sulfuric acid rain that you'll find in Venus' upper atmosphere doesn't reach the surface, it's also so dark down there (equivalent to a heavily overcast day here on Earth) that solar power is horrendously inefficient.

Just a month after humanoid robot Pepper conducted a Buddhist burial ceremony, a robo-contemporary has conducted the world-renowned Lucca Philharmonic orchestra alongside operatic greats such as Andrea Bocelli. Do robots need a heart to complete tasks of passion? As shown by YuMi, the robotic maestro designed by Swiss Firm ABB, maybe not. Under the fresco-covered ceiling of a theatre in Pisa, Italy, the two-armed YuMi directed a program titled "A breath of hope: from the Stradivarius to the robot" for guests attending the first International Festival of Robotics. YuMi's movements are incredibly fluid and nuanced -- as you'd expect the gestures of a world-class composer to be -- with the orchestra's resident conductor Andrea Colombini saying that "everything was perfect, especially in the length and in the speed of the gesture, which is very important."

Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan has predicted a bonfire of industry jobs as automation takes hold across the finance sector. Every signal is that he will be proved right very soon. Those roles in finance where the knowledge required is systematic will soon disappear. And it will happen irrespective of how high a level, how highly trained or how experienced the human equivalent may currently be. Regular and repetitive tasks at all levels of an organisation already do not need to be done by humans.