More than a third of U.S. jobs could be at "high risk" of automation by the early 2030s, a percentage that's greater than in Britain, Germany and Japan, according to a report released Friday. The analysis by accounting and consulting firm PwC focused primarily on the economic outlook in Britain, but it included a section on automation in Britain and elsewhere. In the U.S., 38% of jobs could be at risk of automation, compared with 30% in Britain, 35% in Germany and 21% in Japan. The report emphasizes that these estimates are based on the anticipated capabilities of robotics and artificial intelligence by the early 2030s, and that the pace and direction of technological progress are "uncertain." The key issue is not that the U.S. has more jobs in sectors that are universally ripe for automation, the report says; rather, it's that more U.S. jobs in certain sectors are potentially vulnerable than, say, British jobs in the same sectors.

DataRobot has raised $54 million in the first close of a Series C round led by New Enterprise Associates. The latest round brings the total amount raised by the Boston, Massachusetts-based company to $111 million, with "significant" additional funding expected in the second close of the round. Data scientists Jeremy Achin and Thomas DeGodoy founded DataRobot in 2012 on the belief that automated machine learning will not only increase productivity for data scientists, but will also open up the world of data science to non-data scientists. The DataRobot platform features hundreds of open-source machine learning algorithms, allowing users to quickly build predictive models. Chris Devaney, COO at DataRobot, told ZDNet that a data scientist would typically look at a set of data, prepare that data, and then train a predictive model -- a process that can take weeks or even months.

The Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution is to open in San Francisco on Friday. SAN FRANCISCO -- The World Economic Forum opens the doors Friday to a new outpost focusing on ways in which science and technology can positively impact society. The Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution aims to reshape industries, challenge regulatory frameworks and redefine "what it means to be a human," Murat Sönmez, a member of the World Economic Forum Managing Board and head of the new center, said in a statement. "We need to urgently develop policy norms and frameworks and apply these innovations to ensure their benefits affect us all," said Sonmez, pointing to jobs of the future, artificial intelligence and ethics, national digital policies, cross border data flows, civil drones, and autonomous vehicles and the environment. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) were planning to open the center at San Francisco's Presidio and play host to more than 120 dignitaries, including Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland, University of California at Berkeley President Nicholas Dirks, start-up founders, venture capitalists, and participants from Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Turkey and the UK.

A four-year old boy in the U.K. managed to call the police to aid his unconscious mother by using Touch ID and Siri, authorities said this week. The Metropolitan Police said the boy called 999, the U.K.'s emergency number, on March 7 and told the emergency operator he thought his mother was dead because "she's closing her eyes and she's not breathing." The operator then asked the child where he lived and sent police and an ambulance to the address. Emergency responders arrived 13 minutes after the call was made and broke into the house where they found the boy, his twin brother and a younger brother inside with the mother lying unconscious on the floor. Paramedics gave first aid to the mother at her house and regained consciousness afterwards.

Can you see the random forest for its leaves? The Leaf Classification playground competition ran on Kaggle from August 2016 to February 2017. Kagglers were challenged to correctly identify 99 classes of leaves based on images and pre-extracted features. In this winner's interview, Kaggler Ivan Sosnovik shares his first place approach. He explains how he had better luck using logistic regression and random forest algorithms over XGBoost or convolutional neural networks in this feature engineering competition.

When you picture laser-wielding robots, equipped with the latest machine vision algorithms, what setting do you imagine them operating in? Currently being employed in the North Sea fjords in Norway, along with a select few lochs in Scotland, a smart underwater drone developed by Stingray Marine Solutions is designed to help deal with the problem of sea lice. Didn't know that salmon had lice? Don't worry, you're not alone. "It's not a problem that's all that well known outside of the salmon farming industry in Norway," John Breivik, general manager at Stingray, told Digital Trends.

British workers could face difficult competition in the workplace with the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new report published Friday from the accounting professional service PwC. The study revealed robotics and AI could affect nearly 30 percent of U.K. jobs by the 2030s, compared to 38 percent in the U.S., 35 percent in Germany and 21 percent in Japan. Jobs most at risk to be replaced by automation in the study included transportation, manufacturing and wholesale and retail, the Independent reported. Social workers, teachers and medical employees were less at risk. The study also estimated that an increase in automation would affect men more than women, especially men with a lower level of education, who PwC said the government should help by training those lesser-skilled workers in the next 10 to 20 years.

There are three categories of intelligence in the legal vertical–intellectual, emotional, and artificial. Many lawyers have elevated IQ's, though relatively few seem to possess high EQ's– commonly called'people skills'. Only the best lawyers--trusted advisers– have both. Artificial intelligence (AI), a recent entrant in the legal vertical, scores high on IQ, but the jury is still out on whether machines can develop comparable EQ. What kind of intelligence is required for legal delivery?

I haven't been following suit the fate of DMOZ, the human-edited web catalogue. So I was a bit surprised that it closed down a few days ago. Not that I was much surprised. I always felt that there was something wrong with it. I recall the days when a DMOZ listing was still supposed to improve your Google Ranking. We had our student intern apply for a job as editor for the vacant and oddly maintained insurance pages in German language.

More than 10 million workers in the UK are at high risk of losing their jobs to robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems over the next 15 years, according to a new report released today. However, new AI-related technologies will also boost productivity and generate additional jobs elsewhere in the economy, the report found. The study by accountancy firm PwC estimates that the UK has a lower proportion of existing jobs at potential high risk of automation than the US (38 percent) and Germany (35 percent), but more than Japan (21 percent). The analysis found that the likely impact of automation varies significantly across industry sectors. The highest proportion of jobs facing potential high risks of automation among the larger sectors include transportation and storage (56 percent), manufacturing (46 percent) and wholesale and retail trade (44 percent).