Switzerland will become the first country in the world to hold a nationwide referendum on the introduction of a basic income on Sunday. The proposal, if passed, would give every adult legally resident in Switzerland an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ( 1,755; 2,554) a month, whether they work or not. Supporters point to the fact that 21st-Century work is increasingly automated, with more and more traditional jobs, in factories, retail and even in finance and accounting, being done by machines. And they do not need salaries. The campaign has staged some eyecatching demonstrations, including one in which hundreds of "robots" danced through the streets of Zurich, promising to "free" humans from the daily grind of Monday to Friday work, just to pay the bills. "The robots are saying'we don't want to grab your work and make you suffer'," said campaigner Che Wagner.

Machines are becoming more intelligent every year thanks to advances being made by companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and many others. AI agents, as they're sometimes known, can already beat us at complex board games like Go, and they're becoming more competent in a range of other areas. Now a London artificial-intelligence research lab owned by Google has carried out a study to make sure that we can pull the plug on self-learning machines when we want to. DeepMind, bought by Google for a reported 400 million pounds -- about 580 million -- in 2014, teamed up with scientists at the University of Oxford to find a way to make sure that AI agents don't learn to prevent, or seek to prevent, humans from taking control. The paper -- "Safely Interruptible Agents PDF," published on the website of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) -- was written by Laurent Orseau, a research scientist at Google DeepMind, Stuart Armstrong at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, and several others.

Google's secretive AI division is working on a'big red button' that can halt its artificial intelligence software. Researchers have previously warned that AI could threaten humanity, with doomsday scenarios of AIs taking over, with one expert involved in the new paper admitting Google's historic win over Go world champion proves AI can be'unpredictable and immoral'. Now the DeepMind team say they have the answer - an off switch. Google's DeepMind team say AI agents are'unlikely to behave optimally all the time' and have called for'safe interruptibility' to be built into systems. Google has set up an ethics board to oversee its work in artificial intelligence.

DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence company, catapulted itself into fame when its AlphaGo AI beat the world champion of Go, Lee Sedol. However, DeepMind is working to do a lot more than beat humans at chess and Go and various other games. Indeed, its AI algorithms were developed for something far greater: To "solve intelligence" by creating general purpose AI that can be used for a host of applications and, in essence, learn on their own. This, of course, raises some concerns. Namely, what do we do if the AI breaks…if it gets a virus…if it goes rogue?

Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence has started working with the doctors and computers at London's Royal Free Hospital Trust; many of the first questions being asked concentrate on data security and patient confidentiality. About 1.6m patients a month are seen by the three hospitals that the Trust covers and, according to an agreement seen by the New Scientist magazine, the data includes patient information from the past five years. That data can't be used by Google in any other part of its business, it is stored by a third party and will have to be destroyed/given back when the agreement ends, according to the New Scientist. Google wants to apply machine learning to mine the data and help doctors by predicting care needs – both at the level of the individual patient and the wider community. If the pilot works then implications are huge: clever new algorithms will help make healthcare better and be more efficient at treatment. Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) could predict the outbreak of infectious diseases from scattered hospital admissions data before a human expert has noticed.

Creators of the popular game revealed this week that Minecraft has now been sold more than 100 million times – and a few copies have even made it to Antarctica. The figures combine sales from PC, console, and mobile versions of the game to create a user-base that'includes folks from every country and territory on the planet.' Creators of the popular game revealed this week that Minecraft has now been sold more than 100 million times – and a few copies have even made it to Antarctica. The figures combine sales from PC, console, and mobile versions of the game to create a user-base that'includes folks from every country and territory on the planet' Minecraft was created in 2009. At the start of the game, a player is put into a'virtually infinite game world.'

There are two unmistakable sides to the debate concerning the future of artificial intelligence. In the "boom" corner are companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft aggressively investing in technology to make AI systems smarter and smarter. And in the "doom" corner are prominent thinkers like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking who've said that AI is like "summoning the demon." Now, one of the the most advanced AI outfits, Google's DeepMind, is taking safety measures in case human operators need to "take control of a robot that is misbehaving [that] may lead to irreversible consequences," which I assume includes but is not limited to killing all humans. However, this paper doesn't get nearly so apocalyptic and keeps examples simple, like intelligent robots working in a factory.

No one wants to walk with a walker, but age has a way of making people compromise on their quality of life. The team behind Superflex, which spun out of SRI International in May, thinks there could be another way. The company is building wearable robotic suits, plus other types of clothing, that can make it easier for soldiers to carry heavy loads or for elderly or disabled people to perform basic tasks. A current prototype is a soft suit that fits over most of the body. It delivers a jolt of supporting power to the legs, arms, or torso exactly when needed to reduce the burden of a load or correct for the body's shortcomings. A walker is a "very cost-effective" solution for people with limited mobility, but "it completely disempowers, removes dignity, removes freedom, and causes a whole host of other psychological problems," SRI Ventures president Manish Kothari says.

The global automotive industry and the oil majors are not known for meekly rolling over when a competitor comes along – from General Motors involvement in killing public transport in Los Angeles in the 1940s to Shell lobbying to undermine EU renewables targets in more recent years. But recently, the world has started to see a new side to the sector: "If you can't beat them, join them; and if you can't join them, buy them out." This week Saudi Arabia announced a surprising new venture for the country's vast oil-generated sovereign investment fund: a 3.5bn stake in the ride-hailing startup Uber. The investment, which values six-year-old Uber at 62.5bn, is one of the largest ever made in a privately held company, and is roughly the same size as the sum total of all investments in the UK's tech sector over the course of 2015, according to the venture capitalist David Galbraith. Saudi Arabia's goal with its investment fund is to use some of the state's 2tn in assets to make long-standing investments that will fund the future of the country once its oil economy begins to sputter.

Nearly 250 million video surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the world, and chances are you've been seen by several of them today. Most people barely notice their presence anymore -- on the streets, inside stores, and even within our homes. We accept the fact that we are constantly being recorded because we expect this to have virtually no impact on our lives. But this balance may soon be upended by advancements in facial recognition technology. Soon anybody with a high-resolution camera and the right software will be able to determine your identity.