Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making unending waves, both positive and negative. While some experts are going gaga over its productivity orientation and task precision, a few others are expressing concerns over the social impact due to the loss of jobs to robots. A single fact overrides these opinions--all sectors are without question exploring how they can leverage AI to better business, banking being no exception. For example, last year, RBS replaced some of its human employees with automated services. This is just the beginning, as machines slowly but steadily make their presence felt in the fintech sector.

While the Geneva Motor Show is just days away, Peugeot didn't wait for the festivities in Switzerland to debut its latest concept. Instead, the automaker revealed an autonomous car here at Mobile World Congress. Dubbed the Instinct Concept, the vehicle blends self-driving tech, home automation and cloud-based connectivity to define user profiles. The vehicle uses Samsung's ARTIK IoT platform to pull in all of your information from mobile devices, wearables and connected home gear to adapt the best driving or riding experience. The car also gives you access to all of those connected devices from the interior of the Instinct Concept.

Netflix has announced new software that it hopes could save you cash while improving your viewing experience. The firm has been working on an improved method of delivering its content, which it hopes will be released in the next few months. The Dynamic Optimiser compression system will improve overall video quality while also reducing the amount of data used to access it - potentially presenting substantial savings on mobile data bills. Netflix's Dynamic Optimiser should improve overall video quality while also reducing the amount of data used to access it. The Dynamic Optimiser uses artificial intelligence to work out the complexity of the image being presented.

While many firms are looking to the moon for mining opportunities, one Australian firm believes there could be precious metals a lot nearer to home. Deep-sea robots will be sent to mine mineral deposits in the deep ocean in 2019 in a test for a controversial new scheme. As land-based mineral stores are becoming depleted, the ocean floor is becoming a more attractive mining prospect, containing gold, copper and other precious metal deposits used to make electronics, renewable energy tools and even medical imaging machines. But deep-sea excavation may have a negative impact on deep ocean marine life, as robot mining may destroy their homes and disturb these sensitive species. The Canadian mining company Nautilus Minerals plans to send robots to mine deposits rich in copper and gold in the waters of Papua New Guinea.

Facebook has developed artificial intelligence tools to identify warning signs of suicidal users and will activate real-time prevention and support simply by looking at the language they've used in posts. The recent increase of people broadcasting their suicides using Facebook Live has set into action algorithms that will be able to pick out certain words and phrases in individual posts and comments from friends. The pattern recognition process could pick up key phrases such as "I'm worried about you" and rapidly send the posts to a human operations team, who will quickly review them and provide support. The algorithms have been trained using text based on posts that were previously identified as being from users who were at risk. From this they are able to flag certain content to streamline the reporting process.

Move aside people, robots are here! Robots are becoming smarter, faster and cheaper and their deployment across industrial usage such as automotive and electronics has surged in the last couple of years. From industrial robots to self-driving cars, robotics technology is becoming more cognitive-enabled that replicates human skills and intelligence. For the past years, investment into the robotics sector has risen rapidly. According to CB Insights, the number of funding deals in robotics globally nearly doubled from around $273 million in 2014 to $587 million in 2015. The investment growth in 2015 was 115%, as compared to 55% in 2014 (Figure 1).

BARCELONA, SPAIN--Coca-Cola is one of the most beloved brands in the world and is known for creating some of the best work in the advertising industry. But can an AI bot replace a creative? Mariano Bosaz, the brand's global senior digital director, wants to find out. Speaking to Adweek at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, Bosaz said that he's partly in Barcelona this week to get a better feel for how brands can use artificial intelligence because he's interested in swapping in robots for humans that crank out ads. "Content creation is something that we have been doing for a very long time--we brief creative agencies and then they come up with stories that they audio visualize and then we have 30 seconds or maybe longer," Bosaz said. "In content, what I want to start experimenting with is automated narratives."

Economists may be underestimating the impact on labor markets of increasing automation and the rise of artificial intelligence, according to a post published on the Bank of England's staff blog on Wednesday. "The potential for simultaneous and rapid disruption, coupled with the breadth of human functions that AI might replicate, may have profound implications for labor markets," BOE regional agents Mauricio Armellini and Tim Pike wrote in the Bank Underground post. "Economists should seriously consider the possibility that millions of people may be at risk of unemployment, should these technologies be widely adopted." Robots and intelligent machines threaten to replace workers in industries from finance to retail to haulage, with BOE Chief Economist Andrew Haldane estimating in 2015 that 15 million British jobs and 80 million in the U.S. could be lost to automation. Past periods of technological upheaval, such as the industrial revolution, may not be a useful guide as the pace of change was slower, giving society longer to mitigate the potential consequences of increasing job displacement and inequality, according to Armellini and Pike.

Google is pressing pause on its efforts to build Pixel laptops, leaving the in-house premium brand to tablets and phones. The company's hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, recently told reporters during Mobile World Congress in Spain that Google had "no plans" to create a new Chromebook Pixel, according to TechCrunch. For now, Google is leaving it up to third-party Chromebook makers like Asus, Acer, HP, and Samsung to fill in the gaps. Osterloh said the company has sold out of remaining Pixel laptop inventory and doesn't plan on making any more. A quick look at the Google Store shows there are no Pixel laptops available.

The rise of the household robot appears inevitable as robotics labs scramble to design companions that can clean, cook and even talk to their human owners. But a top cybersecurity firm has claimed that if hackers got into a robot's circuitry, it could be used to kill. Experts at the firm IOActive have warned that hacked robots, including some on the market today, could be used to poison humans or pets and even burgle homes. Experts at security firm IOActive have warned that hacked robots, including some on the market today, could be used to poison humans or pets and even burgle homes. This robot, not analysed in IOActive's report, was on display at the'Robotics Expo' in Moscow in 2015 Robots linked to home security systems could be hacked into to burgle homes, IOActive suggests.