As Washington fiddles, China is investing billions in U.S. startups with cutting-edge products that could have military applications at the same time it is dialing back investments in less critical American industries such as entertainment. A New York Times story this week says that among the startups are companies working on artificial intelligence for military robots, rocket engines, ship sensors and printers that could produce high-tech components such as computer screens for military jets. Many of the firms making such investments are owned by companies controlled by the Chinese government or connected to its leaders. A blog post last December on the website of CB Insights, which tracks startup investments, says that China poured $9.9 billion into new Silicon Valley firms in 2015 and made an additional $3.5 billion in tech investments in the first nine months of last year. The number and size of those tech investments in startups developing military applications were not broken out.

Washington (AFP) - Are robots coming for your job? Although technology has long affected the labor force, recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are heightening concerns about automation replacing a growing number of occupations, including highly skilled or "knowledge-based" jobs. Just a few examples: self-driving technology may eliminate the need for taxi, Uber and truck drivers, algorithms are playing a growing role in journalism, robots are informing consumers as mall greeters, and medicine is adapting robotic surgery and artificial intelligence to detect cancer and heart conditions. Of 700 occupations in the United States, 47 percent are at "high risk" from automation, an Oxford University study concluded in 2013. A McKinsey study released this year offered a similar view, saying "about half" of activities in the world's workforce "could potentially be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies."

Talk is cheap, but security is king in the AI future of conversational commerce. Researchers at TSSG in Waterford are on the case for making AI voice-based commerce tangible and safe. The speed of the introduction of services like Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon Echo's Alexa makes it easy to forget that the artificially intelligent (AI) future we all dreamed of is actually here. Yesterday, Gartner Fellow and vice-president Tom Austin pointed this paradox out when he said that most of the AI on our smartphones – many of which have been with us for years – are taken for granted. 'We are seeing cool apps coming out but we have to make sure that we underpin the technology by addressing core security and privacy concerns as well' – ERIC ROBSON And yet, the hottest areas of tech today, AI and machine-learning, hold the keys to a whole generation of services that will transform our lives forever.

Cognitive technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) are no longer science fiction or futuristic technologies, rather the reality we're living in today. AI is an umbrella term encompassing subfields such as machine learning, expert systems, general intelligence, robotics, natural language processing, and so forth. Many of the latest advances and innovations in medical diagnostics, aviation, stock trading, and so forth have AI at the core. "AI algorithms play an increasingly large role in modern society, though usually not labeled'AI.' It will become increasingly important to develop AI algorithms that are not just powerful and scalable, but also transparent to inspection," said Nick Bostrom, superintelligence professor at Oxford University.

Investing in AI is not an easy job: AI technologies are black boxes and unless you are able to dig into lines of code they may be inscrutable. Simply looking at proof of concepts might not be enough to really understand the underlying stack behind specific applications, and this represents a big barrier for investors to efficiently allocate their capitals. Generalist investors found then alternative ways to discern investable companies from the pile of tech-driven companies out there. AI specialists are luckily not that naive, but they are able to go much deeper and look behind the veil. I then compiled a list as extensive as possible of every investor I read or bumped into over the past months. A final remark: there is a fund which does not make AI investments, but it is an AI investor.

Drone footage shows the extent of the destruction after a suspected gas explosion on Merseyside. Two people were seriously injured and 32 others hurt.

You are lying on an operating table, fully conscious, but rendered otherwise insensible, otherwise incapable of movement. A humanoid machine appears at your side, bowing to its task with ceremonial formality. With a brisk sequence of motions, the machine removes a large panel of bone from the rear of your cranium, before carefully laying its fingers, fine and delicate as a spider's legs, on the viscid surface of your brain. You may be experiencing some misgivings about the procedure at this point. Put them aside, if you can.

Is a guaranteed paycheck from the government, with no strings attached, the answer to the relentless rise of automation? The concept might sound far-fetched, but a so-called universal basic income (UBI), is currently one of the most hotly debated policy topics being floated as a means to address income inequality and the disruption that technology poses to the workforce. UBI is being tested in Finland and other international markets, but has received decidedly mixed reactions. Meanwhile, developments in robotics and artificial intelligence have grave implications for the labor force. A report issued this week from consulting firm PwC found that more than a third of U.S. jobs were at risk from automation, upping the ante for policy makers to cushion the blow to workers. Advocates for UBI argue that a guaranteed paycheck could serve as a way to fight poverty and uncertainty in an evolving U.S. economy, and encourage workers to take more risks in the job market if they had some extra money as a cushion.

Uber has suspended its fleet of self-driving cars while it investigates a crash in Arizona involving one of its vehicles. Photographs posted online show the car lying on its side next to another badly damaged vehicle. There were no serious injuries as a result of the incident. The Uber Technologies car – a Volvo SUV – was carrying two engineers in the front and no backseat passengers but it is not yet clear whether the car was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash. The incident is the latest blow for the car-hailing app which has been left reeling by a series of setbacks in recent weeks including the departure of its president, Jeff Jones.

Technology is an intrinsic part of our lives, both personally and professionally. How will the advent of tech affect the future of work? As technological advancement becomes more rapid and more nuanced, we're beginning to see more and more ways for it to play a part in shaping the future of work. From machine learning to AI and robotics, the very fabric of the workforce and the workplace may be on the cusp of a dramatic change. Food and facilities management giant Sodexo may, by the very nature of its work, find itself at the vanguard of that change.