The concept of artificial intelligence began as pure fiction, something to be imagined but never actually existing. Today, we know that that's no longer the case. Artificial Intelligence is real and there are already real-world applications where artificial intelligence is helping us solve some of the biggest problems facing humanity. Here's a look at how artificial intelligence has developed through the years. The earliest known reference to something we could term artificial intelligence dates back to the ancient Greeks.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Wang's department is said to have developed a large family of cruise missiles for the Chinese military. He added that China was a global leader in the artificial intelligence field. In March, China announces 7.6 percent defense budget rise, lowest in six years, reaching 146 billion.

Humans are fairly sophisticated when it comes to understanding the complex meanings beneath the spoken or written word. For example, we can tell that a statement like, "My car had a flat. Brilliant!" is sarcastic, not actually brilliant. And with the help of machine learning, computers are beginning to get better at reading between the lines of our tweets, Facebook updates, and email messages, resulting in a new kind of analytics: sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, seeks to determine the attitude of an individual or group regarding a particular topic or overall context – be it a judgment, evaluation, or emotional reaction – from text, video, or audio data.

The release of President Barack Obama's 2013 drone warfare playbook and the July 1 signing of an executive order on minimising civilian casualties has security analysts looking back at previous strikes and wondering what impact the executive order might have on future ones. Obama's 2013 policy guidance, released on July 31, after the American Civil Liberties Union sued for its release, had set "near certainty" that a "terrorist target is present" and that "non-combatants will not be injured or killed" as criteria for a strike. Q: So you don't know where you targeted him? I mean, how could you fire something out of the sky and blow something up and kill people and not know what country it's in? TONER: [laughing] I understand what - your question, Brad.

WHEN it comes to following the money, the authorities have their work cut out. Every year, criminals are thought to launder more than 1.5 trillion worldwide. Which is why Australia's financial intelligence agency is turning to AI for help. In Australia, the scale of the problem could amount to some US 4.5 billion annually. There, the task of cracking down on illegally obtained funds falls to the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate. These improvements are due mainly to advances in technology, beginning in the industrial age and continuing today in the information age. There are many exciting new technologies that will continue to transform the world and improve human welfare. Here are eleven of them.

IN "Minority Report", a policeman, played by Tom Cruise, gleans tip-offs from three psychics and nabs future criminals before they break the law. In the real world, prediction is more difficult. But it may no longer be science fiction, thanks to the growing prognosticatory power of computers. That prospect scares some, but it could be a force for good--if it is done right. Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, can generate remarkably accurate predictions.

Getting aid to impoverished Africans is hard enough, what with blockades of bureaucracy and red tape. But in many African countries, bad data, or a lack of it, makes distributing funds even more troublesome. "Fighting poverty has always been this shining goal of the modern world," Neal Jean, a doctoral student in computer science at Stanford University's School of Engineering, told me. "It's the number one priority for the United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but the major challenge is that there's not enough reliable data. It's really hard to help impoverished people when you don't know where they are."

You could say the job of the sports fan is not only to cheer but to jeer. American sprinter Justin Gatlin, who has been suspended in the past for doping, entered Olympic Stadium before his 100-meter race to resounding boos. Competitors are also a part of the ritual. After winning a gold medal, American swimmer Lilly King wagged her finger to mock her Russian competitor Yulia Efimova, who previously had been suspended for doping. To philosopher Julian Savulescu, the boos and censures ring with, if not outright hypocrisy, short memory spans. "Caffeine is a performance-enhancer," he says. "It used to be banned and now it's allowed." Savulescu, a native Australian, who directs the Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, has been one of the loudest critics in recent years of doping policies. Sports governing bodies have had restrictions in place for decades, he says, and have had little effect. Athletes will always find a way to beat the system, he says, and like most sports fans, Savulescu laments that doping creates an uneven playing field. But unlike most fans, Savulescu thinks the solution is to make doping legal in sports.