Much like cloning, people are entertaining serious speculations in the acceptance of artificial intelligence. Many are of the opinion that such technology will eventually result in the elimination of the human race or in its suppression, just as seen in certain Sci-Fi movies. Others believe that the technology will be a considerable threat to jobs. Without jobs, there will be unrest, which would still, eventually, lead to the breakdown of the human race. But really, how accurate are these allegations or beliefs?

An interesting approach to analyzing and developing tools for neural networks that has received renewed attention is to examine the equivalent kernel of the neural network. This is based on the fact that a fully connected feedforward network with one hidden layer, a certain weight distribution, an activation function, and an infinite number of neurons is a mapping that can be viewed as a projection into a Hilbert space. We show that the equivalent kernel of an MLP with ReLU or Leaky ReLU activations for all rotationally-invariant weight distributions is the same, generalizing a previous result that required Gaussian weight distributions. We derive the equivalent kernel for these cases. In deep networks, the equivalent kernel approaches a pathological fixed point, which can be used to argue why training randomly initialized networks can be difficult. Our results also have implications for weight initialization and the level sets in neural network cost functions.

Brisbane, Australia-based M3DICINE is the latest device maker looking to distance physicians from their signature rubber-tubed stethoscopes. Today, the company announced the launch of Stethee, a wireless, artificial intelligence-boosted stethoscope that pairs with an iOS or Android app to quickly capture and analyze heart and lung data. "This most iconic and enduring symbol of healthcare is now reinvented, into an intelligent and sophisticated medical device -- a powerful diagnostic assistant that becomes more intelligent the more it is used," Dr. Nayyar Hussain, founder and CEO of M3DICINE, said in a statement. "The complementary Stethee Apps bring the power of machine learning and deep neural networks to health professionals worldwide who can use this data not only to monitor the progress and health of individual patients, but collectively to uncover new patterns and trends to help in the fight against heart and lung disease globally." Stethee, which was cleared by the FDA late last year, filters and amplifies the sounds of a patient's heart or lungs before sending the audio to a user's connected headphones via Bluetooth.

They are coming for our jobs, and worse, they're coming to get us. We are besieged by ever more dire warnings about artificial intelligence from increasingly loud voices. Elon Musk repeatedly warns that AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation and we should beware the robots going down the street killing people. One frequently cited analysis by Oxford economists suggests that 47 per cent of workers in the US have jobs at high risk of automation over the next two decades. CSIRO has predicted a similar proportion in Australia.

One of the most stressful parts of traveling happens between heading to the airport and waiting to board your flight, as you start checking to see if your flight is on time. Flights already shows delays, and now we're sharing reasons for those delays and delay predictions too. Using historic flight status data, our machine learning algorithms can predict some delays even when this information isn't available from airlines yet--and delays are only flagged when we're at least 80% confident in the prediction. Simply search for your flight ("American 4442") or the airline and flight route ("Air New Zealand Auckland to Singapore"), and these details will appear right in your search results.

How will enterprises manage artificial intelligence deployments when most managers and executives don't understand the underlying models, data science, or technology? That question is almost haunting. Artificial intelligence (AI for short) is lumped together with big data, machine learning, and neural networks to create what equates to a technology buzzword orgy. And if you want another theme toss in cloud computing, which is the enabler for AI. Sure, we know AI is a bit hyped.

In this episode of Robots in Depth, Per Sjöborg speaks with Daniel Pizzata about how his passion for modular robotics led him to start Modbot, a company building robotics platforms. The goal of Modbot is to bring robots out of the research labs and make them accessible to everyone. Daniel started out in the defence sector in Australia using robotics to measure radio transmissions. He worked on many different projects, but felt that he wanted to work with technology that was more widely applicable in society. Daniel also talks about how he met his co-founder Adam Ellison and how they had the idea of a platform and a community that could widen the range of people that are able to develop robotics and automation solutions.

Tesla will partner with French renewable energy company Neoen to build the 100-megawatt battery farm in South Australia state. After a successful run selling hats, billionaire Elon Musk's The Boring Company has expanded its offering to include flamethrowers. Musk announced that his infrastructure firm had started selling flamethrowers Sunday. People were able to pre-order them for $500 each, and could buy an "overpriced" fire extinguisher with a "cool sticker" for £30 as well. A flamethrower being offered for sale by Elon Musk and The Boring Company.

It's a type of fish, this one several feet long, with rows of sharp, serrated teeth that it uses to clamp down on prey. Sharks, specifically great whites, were catapulted into the public eye with the release of the film Jaws in the summer of 1975. The film is the story of a massive great white that terrorizes a seaside community, and the image of the cover alone--the exposed jaws of a massive shark rising upward in murky water--is enough to inject fear into the hearts of would-be swimmers. Other thrillers have perpetuated the theme of sharks as villans. We're going to need a bigger boat: Take a look at the design history of Jaws and its iconic cover https://t.co/dRdRPILF7L

The wait is finally over. Apple's first smart speaker, the HomePod, became available for pre-order online in the US, UK and Australia on Friday. The firm announced earlier this week that its £319 ($349) voice-activated device will go on sale on starting February 9th. But Apple fans who are eager to get their hands on the HomePod early can place an order beginning today. Apple's £319 ($349) 'HomePad' smart speaker is set to go on sale on 9th February in the US, UK and Australia.