A "robot revolution" will transform the global economy over the next 20 years, cutting the costs of doing business but exacerbating social inequality, as machines take over everything from caring for the elderly to flipping burgers, according to a new study. As well as robots performing manual jobs, such as hoovering the living room or assembling machine parts, the development of artificial intelligence means computers are increasingly able to "think", performing analytical tasks once seen as requiring human judgment. In a 300-page report, revealed exclusively to the Guardian, analysts from investment bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch draw on the latest research to outline the impact of what they regard as a fourth industrial revolution, after steam, mass production and electronics. "We are facing a paradigm shift which will change the way we live and work," the authors say. "The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear to parabolic in recent years. Penetration of robots and artificial intelligence has hit every industry sector, and has become an integral part of our daily lives."

A Stanford robotics team has built a humanoid robot that can stand in as "the physical representation" of a remote pilot -- a swimming avatar for dangerous aquatic expeditions. The robot, OceanOne, is a two-handed, anthropomorphic'bot that provides haptic feedback, meaning the pilot can "feel" what the robot reaches out and touches. OceanOne's first trip was to the wreck of the La Lune, a ship that sank off the coast of France in 1664, where the robot recovered artifacts. The goal is for OceanOne to help out on missions that are too dangerous for human divers. While OceanOne is still a prototype, the project could eventually become a fleet of robotic divers, working together as human pilots guide them from afar.

Another week, another IBM acquisition: This time, a cloud consulting and implementation services specialist called Bluewolf Group. IBM (NYSE: IBM) said Thursday (March 31) the acquisition would help extend its analytics, cloud consulting and "experience design" capabilities. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed, but reports pegged the deal at about 200 million. Upon completion of the transaction, which is expected by the end of the second quarter of this year, IBM said Bluewolf would become part of its Interactive Experience unit focusing on offering consulting services for clients adopting Salesforce offerings via the cloud. The deal is intended to boost the IBM unit's customer experience and data integration platforms while adding a cloud consulting capability.

The question of human existence -whether as a species in general or just in the working world- has generated quite some concern around the world. Famous technologists and successful entrepreneurs such as Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk or Jaan Tallinn have responded with organisations like Future of Life Institute and OpenAI. They strive to protect human life from intelligent machines taking over the world. Thanks to Paul O'Connell, founder and organiser of the Uprise Festival in Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to dive a bit deeper into this issue. As part of the Festival -already in its 3rd edition and coming to Dublin later this year- I was able to bring to the audience a panel of guest speakers with the goal of answering one bold question: are humans still relevant?

Jamie Metzl is a Senior Fellow for Technology and National Security at the Atlantic Council. After 4 billion years of evolution by one set of rules, our species is about to begin evolving by another. Overlapping and mutually reinforcing revolutions in genetics, information technology, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and other fields are providing the tools that will make it possible to genetically alter our future offspring should we choose to do so. Nearly everybody wants to have cancers cured and terrible diseases eliminated. Most of us want to live longer, healthier and more robust lives. Genetic technologies will make that possible. But the very tools we will use to achieve these goals will also open the door to the selection for and ultimately manipulation of non-disease-related genetic traits -- and with them a new set of evolutionary possibilities.

Proponents of autonomous vehicles are in a sticky situation. Self-driving technology is expected to have a tremendous impact on public health and reduce the 1.25 million deaths every year on global roads. At the same time, this emerging technology is a threat to the employment of the millions who are paid to sit behind the wheel -- from truck drivers to cab drivers and delivery workers. Baidu chief scientist Andrew Ng, an expert in the world of artificial intelligence, acknowledges the unemployment concerns, but he sees a way forward that offers society the benefits of autonomous vehicles and blunts the negative impact of job losses. "I feel a strong moral responsibility or obligation to try to make self-driving cars a reality as quickly as possible," Ng said in a visit to The Washington Post.

The writer argues that artificial intelligence will steal our jobs – and it may be the best thing that will ever happen to us. We are living on the brink of a fourth industrial revolution argued Klaus Schwab, the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, recently. Like the revolutions of the past – from steam engine to electricity and digitalization, the coming earthquake will fundamentally alter the way we work. The supreme commander of the incoming revolution is artificial intelligence. Two aspects differentiate the coming tsunami from the past ones.

Britain is on the brink of a robotics revolution. Advances in technology are unleashing a new age where computers handle many tasks previously carried out by humans. From automated manufacturing to software that does complex legal work, business is adapting to the robot economy. Some worry that this will lead to a jobs apocalypse as "thinking machines" replace workers. Others are optimistic that robots will free workers from mundane tasks and allow them to concentrate on higher-level creative and strategic work.

With all of the discussion about Big Data these days, there is frequest reference to the 3 V's that represent the top big data challenges: Volume, Velocity, and Variety. These 3 V's generally refer to the size of the dataset (Volume), the rate at which data is flowing into (or out of) your systems (Velocity), and the complexity (dimensionality) of the data (Variety). Most practitioners agree that big data volume is indeed huge, but that is not necessarily big data's biggest challenge, at least not in terms of data storage capacities, which are growing rapidly also and keeping pace with data volume. The velocity of big data is also a very big challenge, though primarily for applications and use cases that specifically demand near-real-time analysis and response to dynamic data streams. However, unlike volume and velocity, most will agree that the variety (complexity) of the data is truly big data's biggest mega-challenge at all scales and in most applications.

After being stranded in the Mediterranean for three days, fear had overcome Alou Sango. "I thought that we would all die, because there was nothing left, the petrol had finished," he says of his journey from Libya. Like thousands before him, Sango boarded an overcrowded boat to escape the country's turmoil after being unable to return to his native Mali. But after days at sea the captain lost his way and, without a GPS position to give to the Italian authorities, the 100 or so passengers were losing hope. Their rubber dinghy was finally spotted by a Chinese vessel, which picked up the migrants and took them to Italy, where Sango, now 24, is studying through a Rome-based charity, Sant'Egidio Community.