Artificial intelligence (AI) has been implemented in multiple industries, from stock trading to hospitals, and Google has singled it out as the next big thing. As Uschi Schreiber, Chair of the Global Accounts Committee at EY, wrote earlier this year: "Leaders in every industry are responding to shifts that would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago. "Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are fundamentally reinventing the workforce." The finance sector, given its heavy reliance on mass amounts of numbers and data, is a prime candidate for the automation offered by intelligent learning systems. But while this might mean great things for efficiency and digital transformation, many have raised concerns about robots taking the place of human employees. The driving motivations behind the installation of AI in business processes appear to be the greater speed, accuracy and volume capability of computers when compared to their existing human counterparts. Many businesses are already using robotic process automation systems to crunch numbers and sift data on a daily basis. For example, Kensho is an intelligent computer system widely used by stock traders and investors to automatically analyse portfolio performance and predict market changes. The software is described as'the world's first computational knowledge engine for the financial industry'. It claims to address Wall Street's greatest challenge – automating and improving on previously human-intensive knowledge work to keep up with the split-second changeability of stock. Kensho's founder, Daniel Nadler, told the New York Times Magazine: ''People always tell me, 'I used to spend two out of five days a week doing this sort of thing,' or'I used to have a guy whose job it was to do nothing other than this one thing'.'' Even the breaking down and translating of numerical data into colloquial terms no longer requires the input of a human operator, thanks to systems that learn with use to mimic personable patterns. UK-based Arria has developed natural language generation software (NLG) that is being used across a wide range of industries to humanise and simplify the analysis of data heavy reports. Arria's Chief Technology Officer Robert Dale, said: "By emulating human behaviour in software, you get technology that can carry out tasks that are more than just straightforward number crunching, with the machine exhibiting real intelligence.

If you leave your iPad untouched for a few days, you probably do not need to worry about much more than a flat battery and a backlog of emails. But with artificial intelligence, computers could soon have their own set of'rights' that could let them sue you for neglect, according to a leading scientist. Professor Marcus du Sautoy, a mathematician at Oxford University, has suggested that as AI leads to our devices developing their own consciousness, they may need their own laws to protect them. Advances in artificial intelligence could lead to computers and smartphones developing consciousness and they may need to be given'human' rights. He claims that if technology is conscious, it could also then be deemed as being alive, and so could win the right to be governed by laws on human rights.

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

High winds are one of the most common causes of flight delays and cancellations at airports, but new technology is now to put an end to the problem. Air traffic controllers at three of Britain's busiest airports are to adopt a new system that can automatically adjust the landing rate of aircraft depending on the wind conditions. Traditional landing procedures mean aircraft must be separated by a set distance when on approach to a runway. A new system that separates landing aircraft (pictured) by time rather than distance is to be introduced to Gatwick and Manchester Airports after a successful trial over the past year at Heathrow. Time-based separation replaces the old system of keeping large aircraft five nautical miles apart when they come into land.

This report is my final project for the MIT Media Lab Class "Integrative Theories of Mind and Cognition" (also known as Future of AI, and New Destinations in Artificial Intelligence) in Spring 2016. Artificial Intelligence performs gradient descent. The AI field discovers a path of success, and then travels that path until progress stops (when a local minimum is reached). Then, the field resets and chooses a new path, thus repeating the process. If this trend continues, AI should soon reach a local minimum, causing the next AI winter. However, recent methods provide an opportunity to escape the local minimum. To continue recent success, it is necessary to compare the current progress to all prior progress in AI. I begin this paper by pointing out a concerning pattern in the field of AI and describing how it can be useful to model the field's behavior. The paper is then divided into two main sections. In the first section of this paper, I argue that the field of artificial intelligence, itself, has been performing gradient descent. I catalog a repeating trend in the field: a string of successes, followed by a sudden crash, followed by a change in direction. In the second section, I describe steps that should be taken to prevent the current trends from falling into a local minimum. I present a number of examples from the past that deep learning techniques are currently unable to accomplish. Finally, I summarize my findings and conclude by reiterating the use of the gradient descent model.

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

With huge leaps taking place in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), right now, experts have started asking questions about the new forms of protection we might need against the formidable smarts and potential dangers of computers and robots of the near future. But do robots need protection from us too? As the'minds' of machines evolve ever closer to something that's hard to tell apart from human intelligence, new generations of technology may need to be afforded the kinds of moral and legal protections we usually think of as'human' rights, says mathematician Marcus du Sautoy from the University of Oxford in the UK. Du Sautoy thinks that once the sophistication of computer thinking reaches a level basically akin to human consciousness, it's our duty to look after the welfare of machines, much as we do that of people. "It's getting to a point where we might be able to say this thing has a sense of itself, and maybe there is a threshold moment where suddenly this consciousness emerges," du Sautoy told media at the Hays Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales this week.

Dr. Rand Hindi is an entrepreneur and data scientist. He is the founder and CEO of Snips, an artificial-intelligence company specializing in context awareness and privacy. Rand started coding at the age of 10, founded his first startup at 14, and created a Web development agency at 15 before starting his PhD at the age of 21. He has been honored as an Innovator Under 35 by MIT Technology Review. He holds a BSc in computer science and a PhD in bioinformatics from University College London (UCL), as well as two graduate degrees from Singularity University in Silicon Valley and THNK in Amsterdam.

I'm interviewing Rob Nail, but I don't know who to make eye contact with, him or his toy robot. The white-and-aquamarine bot blinking at me innocently is named Wesley. He retails for 20,000, is Wall-E cute and is roughly the size of Nail's 19-month-old son. In fact, he's oblivious to all the strange stuff surrounding us: the Oculus Rift viewing station where, moments before, I rode a virtual roller coaster; the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling; and the other robot, which retails for 14,000 and which Nail once used to stream himself to a party. Instead of, you know, actually going.

Stephen Hawking has said that he fails to understand the popularity of Donald Trump, the presumptive US Republican presidential candidate. ITV's Good Morning Britain asked the man who has widened the world's understanding of time, space, stars, galaxies and black holes if he could explain the popular appeal of the billionaire tycoon. Hawking, perhaps the world's most famous living scientist and the author of one of the world's best-selling books, replied: "I can't. He's a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator." He also ventured once again into political issues, appealing to British voters to back the remain campaign in the EU referendum on 23 June – not just for economic and security reasons, but for the sake of science as well.