In January 2015, a host of prominent figures in high tech and science and experts in artificial intelligence (AI) published a piece called "Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence: An Open Letter," calling for research on the societal impacts of AI. Unfortunately, the media grossly distorted and hyped the original formulation into doomsday scenarios. Nonetheless, some thinkers do warn of serious dangers posed by AI, tacitly invoking the notion of a Technological Singularity (first suggested by Good8) to ground their fears. According to this idea, computational machines will improve in competence at an exponential rate. They will reach the point where they correct their own defects and program themselves to produce artificial superintelligent agents that far surpass human capabilities in virtually every cognitive domain.

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Horror movies have always reflected and explored the political climate of the eras that produced them. In the 1950s, Cold War paranoia led to a spate of films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers about aliens hiding among us, looking to destroy humanity from within. Later the chaos and bloodshed of the Vietnam war inspired a cycle of cynical, anarchic and bloody movies such as Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wes Craven's Last House On the Left, in which the rules of civilised society collapse amid senseless, numbing violence. Horror cinema, with its in-built tropes of shock and tension, has always provided a convenient way for culture to process real-life fears. This is why Resident Evil 7, released this week to much critical acclaim, is an interesting benchmark for where horror video games are right now, and what they say about the world around us.

Number of years for the economy to double in size (a full circle represents 100 years) AI establishes a new relationship between people and machines, creating new factors of productivity and growth AI SOLVES KEY BUSINESS CHALLENGES AI CAN DOUBLE ECONOMIES' SIZE What is AI? AI involves multiple technologies that can be combined in different ways to sense, comprehend, act and learn. Slow growth Since the 1980s, GDP growth has slowed in many large economies. Weak productivity Total factor productivity has weakened in the past 10 years. Falling capital efficiency The marginal capital efficiency rate has dropped over 50 years. Labor and capital augmentation Makes more efficient use of the workforce and capital assets Innovation diffusion Uses AI to stimulate new ideas Aging workforce As populations age and birth rates slow, fewer people are available.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledges that he was caught off-guard by the phenomenon of artificial intelligence, which he notes now permeates key Google properties. Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, Brin, a trained computer scientist, said he didn't pay attention to AI in the 1990s because "everyone knew [AI] didn't work," he said. Brin was head of the Google X research group, which featured Google Brain, a project centered on machine intelligence, he recalled. "Fast-forward a few years, and now Brain probably touches every single one of our main projects, ranging from search to photos to ads to everything we do." The revolution in deep nets has "been very profound and definitely surprised me even though I was like right in there," said Brin, now president of Google parent company Alphabet.

AI will destroy jobs, robots will replace humans … That's what we often hear when we talk about the evolution of AI and the rise of robots. But what if Artificial Intelligence could actually boost the economy? We recently conducted a study with Censuswide and asked around 1000 British citizens how they felt about AI and its impact on the automation of their calendar management tasks. One interesting thing to notice is that 47% of professionals in the UK would be interested in using Artificial Intelligence powered assistants to gain time. And how would they spend the time they saved?

Phones that haven't yet been updated to the new version of iOS could fall victim to a range of security flaws. Bugs in the code of iOS can allow hackers to break into many of the most central parts of the iPhone or iPad. The problem could let people get access to things like unlocking and the OS's kernel, letting anyone who had access run apps and so potentially steal information. The problem is fixed by updating to the latest version of iOS, version 10.2.1. The update doesn't bring with it any major features, but fixes those problems, which could affect any devices after the iPhone 5 and the fourth generation of the iPad.

Throughout history, whenever a new technology emerged, the fear that people would be replaced by that technology became a concern. Now the fear is artificial intelligence (AI) will replace humans in the workplace, with everything from warehouse robots to self-driving cabs. "Advances in artificial intelligence will lead to job losses, but new forms of employment will take their place," said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty on a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland. Fears over the impact of AI were a central theme of the panel, run by Vista Equity Partners founder Robert F. Smith. In addition to Ms. Rometty, the panel featured Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito and HealthTap CEO Ron Gutman.

Banks around the world are being confronted with a record number of regulations, and those falling short of institutional obligations are paying a high price for their errors. In response, major financial institutions are grasping big data solutions in a bid to comply with often dense regulations and reduce regulatory breaches. "Considering many banks have grown organically, often via merger and acquisition, their data is not always consistent and well organised," according to James Arnett, a partner at business and technology consulting firm Capco. Mr Arnett believes that new tools can be created through the application of data analytics, which will transform banks compliance programmes from manual, non-scalable projects into lower-cost and automated processes. "There is a real opportunity for banking clients to embrace data analytics to answer the underlying theme of regulation strategically rather than to treat each regulation as a'tick-the-box' exercise," he says.

Researchers are warning Android users off protecting their smartphones with a lock pattern, having found that the majority of them can be cracked within five attempts. The security measure lets a user unlock their handset by tracing a particular pattern across a grid of dots with their finger, and is available as an alternative to a PIN or password. Users are allowed five attempts to get the pattern right before the device detects something suspicious and locks itself. However, researchers from Lancaster University, the University of Bath and Northwest University in China claim to have cracked 95% of 120 unique lock patterns in less than five attempts, using video recordings and computer vision algorithm software. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.