If there's any comfort offered during the current debate around robots, automation and the future of work, it's that robots can't do creativity. Machines are great for automated, precise, repetitive work; not so great for creative, expressive work. Beating beneath the discussion is a steady pulse of fear that once the technology leaps from apprentice to creative independent agent, robots could cause mass unemployment, bring about a dystopian society and steal our very reason for being. Yet there are some who argue that robots getting creative could actually make the world a better place. Machines will analyse and come up with solutions for environmental problems, such as infrastructure and design, that humans couldn't possibly conceive, for example.

With retro games and Go well-conquered, where is an artificial intelligence like Google DeepMind meant to turn next? Before you get too excited (or maybe insanely depressed as you imagine a toaster holding aloft the Magic World Championship trophy on its ejection lever), there are no plans to set the AI loose on playing these popular card games. For now, the folks over at Oxford University are happy enough for DeepMind to analyse card data and transform it into code. Essentially, the task it is being set is one of translating the data from human to machine speak and while the cards have their own game "language" and structure, they can certainly throw some curveballs. Many language generation tasks require the production of text conditioned on both structured and unstructured inputs. We present a novel neural network architecture which generates an output sequence conditioned on an arbitrary number of input functions.

Many people around the world have more Denisovan DNA than previously thought, which has contributed to their sense of smell and ability to thrive at high altitudes, according to a study released Monday. Researchers know that modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa inherited up to 2.1 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals. But far less was known about Denisovans, who are believed to have shared origins with Neanderthals and account for up to 5 percent of DNA in some present day populations. The latest work, from a research team at Harvard Medical School and UCLA, developed a world map of ancient DNA. In doing so, they found that populations in Oceania populations had the highest percentage of ancient DNA – 2 percent Neanderthal and 5 percent Denisovan - while South Asians had more Denisovan DNA – 0.1 percent in Sherpas - than expected.

They died out more than 40,000 years ago but the legacy left by two prehistoric species of early humans is far more widespread than had been previously believed. Scientists have discovered a surprising number of bloodlines around the world carry fragments of DNA from Neanderthals or their sister species, the mysterious Denisovans. Their analysis suggests that our modern human ancestors appear to have interbred with the Denisovans just 100 generations after their trysts with Neanderthals. Scientists have produced new maps showing the levels of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry around the world. And the study has unearthed some surprising new benefits these illicit encounters have gifted to modern humans living today.

Google supercomputer AlphaGo outsmarted South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol, winning 4-1 in the best of five game series that came to an end on Tuesday, as people begin to wonder whether the ever-changing world of artificial intelligence (AI) will one day pose a threat to the human society. Michael Thielscher, a professor at Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW), said the supercomputer can only play Go and is unable to do anything besides what it has been programmed for. "It's now better it seems than any human player but it's still only good at Go, and this is probably the biggest weakness of many existing artificial intelligence systems, that they lack what we call artificial general intelligence," Thielscher, a professor of computer science and engineering, told Xinhua. Google itself is a big believer in AI. In recent years, its self-driving cars have been gaining a lot of attention.

Top Machine Learning & Data Mining Books - for this post, we have scraped various signals (e.g. We have combined all signals to compute a Quality Score for each book and publish the list of top Machine Learning and Data Mining books. The readers will love the list because it is data-driven & objective. This book is very well rated on Amazon website and is written by three professors from USC, Stanford and University of Washington. The three authors: Gareth James, Daniela Witten, & Trevor Hastie all have backgrounds in statistics.

Domino's latest "deliveryman" stands three feet tall and doesn't need to be tipped. It has ferried pizzas in Brisbane at a top speed of 19 km/h, and the company's Australian master franchise said it's excited for what could come next. "We have a relentless passion to push the boundaries of what's possible with pizza delivery," said Michael Gillespie, chief digital officer for Domino's in Australia. "As we get further, it's not hard to believe that we might have a store with a couple of [robots] that are doing deliveries." Domino's has started using a robotic cart named DRU, which stands for Domino's Robotic Unit, to deliver its offerings.

One of the biggest issues in the presidential race is voter anger over lost middle-income jobs, real and perceived damage from trade deals, and rising inequality. But none of the candidates is talking about the elephant pushing its way into the room: a new wave of job-eating information technology, advanced automation, robots and artificial intelligence. The elites have been discussing what's coming for some time, notably a 2014 speech by Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google's parent Alphabet. Huge numbers of middle-class jobs were going to be automated, and few new positions would replace them. He called it the "defining" issue of the next two or three decades. A study from the previous year by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne examined the vulnerability of more than 700 occupations.

Yesterday, news emerged that Google was using a machine-learning artificial intelligence system called "RankBrain" to help sort through its search results. Wondering how that works and fits in with Google's overall ranking system? Here's what we know about RankBrain. The information covered below comes from three sources. First, the Bloomberg story that broke the news about RankBrain yesterday (see also our write-up of it).

Just months after announcing a pizza delivery truck with built-in heaters, the pizza purveyor is upping the ante with the world's first pizza delivery robot. The company's Australian arm announced plans to deploy a Domino Robotic Unit (DRU). Essentially an autonomous vehicle, DRU can, according to Domino's, follow a map, navigate sidewalks, avoid obstacles and keep your pizza hot and fresh while delivering it to your front door. While this sounds like an elaborate marketing stunt, a Domino's spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that the robot is real. "DRU is cheeky and endearing and we are confident that one day he will become an integral part of the Domino's family. He's a road to the future and one that we are very excited about exploring further," said Domino's Group CEO and Managing Director Don Meij in a release.