The Chinese navy, under instruction from President Xi Jinping, has undergone a modernisation and expansion programme that is nothing short of spectacular. Friday's launch of its third and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, for sea trials underscores just how far it has come, and how fast. The first two carriers, the Liaoning and Shandong, were ex-Soviet designs; the Liaoning initially bought for scrap from Ukraine and refitted. While antiquated, they have been used to train new generations of naval officers and pilots in the complex science and art of aircraft carrier operations. This new design of aircraft carrier is a quantum leap in capabilities from these older models and will greatly enhance China's combat power.

There's nothing more romantic than a hunt for hidden treasure--and when those riches are located in the watery depths of the ocean, it can seem even more exciting. Shipwrecks spark the imagination, prompting dreams of untold riches and swashbuckling adventure. More vessels lie at the bottom of the sea than you might think; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's database lists over 10,000 known wrecks off of United States shores alone--and that's not a complete list. According to United Nations cultural agency UNESCO, there are at least 3 million such wrecks worldwide, some thousands of years old. And then there's the booty some of those ships carried. Though there's an argument to be made that the treasure aboard now-sunken vessels is priceless, some experts estimate as much as $60 billion in precious metals lies on the ocean floor.

Blake Lemoine poses for a portrait in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Blake Lemoine poses for a portrait in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Can artificial intelligence come alive? That question is at the center of a debate raging in Silicon Valley after a Google computer scientist claimed over the weekend that the company's AI appears to have consciousness. Inside Google, engineer Blake Lemoine was tasked with a tricky job: Figure out if the company's artificial intelligence showed prejudice in how it interacted with humans.

IT IS ONE of the oldest tropes in science fiction. On June 11th the Washington Post reported that an engineer at Google, Blake Lemoine, had been suspended from his job for arguing that the firm's "LaMDA" artificial-intelligence (AI) model may have become sentient. The newspaper quotes Mr Lemoine as saying: "If I didn't know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I'd think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics." And if not, might another machine do so one day? Arguing about intelligence is tricky because, despite decades of research, no one really understands how the main example--biological brains built by natural selection--work in detail.

Tech companies are constantly hyping the capabilities of their ever-improving artificial intelligence. But Google was quick to shut down claims that one of its programs had advanced so much that it had become sentient. According to an eye-opening tale in the Washington Post on Saturday, one Google engineer said that after hundreds of interactions with a cutting edge, unreleased AI system called LaMDA, he believed the program had achieved a level of consciousness. In interviews and public statements, many in the AI community pushed back at the engineer's claims, while some pointed out that his tale highlights how the technology can lead people to assign human attributes to it. But the belief that Google's AI could be sentient arguably highlights both our fears and expectations for what this technology can do.

China has launched the world's first crewless drone carrier that uses artificial intelligence to navigate autonomously in open water. Beijing has officially described it as a maritime research tool, but some experts have said the ship has the potential to be used as a military vessel. The autonomous ship, the Zhu Hai Yun (pictured here) is around 290 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 20 feet deep and can carry dozens of air, sea, and submersible drones equipped with different observation instruments, according to the shipbuilder, CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipping Co. It describes the vessel as "epoch making" and the "world's first intelligent unmanned system mother ship." "The most immediate benefit to China is likely data collection," Matthew Funaiole, senior fellow of China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Insider.

Amid battling China's aggression tactics, Taiwan has decided to ramp up its air defense by setting up locally-made "Bee Eye" radar systems on the outposts of Dongyin and Quemoy. The radars will also be installed at the disputed Pratas and Spratly archipelagos in the South China Sea. The decision to bring in a new defense system next year comes after several low-flying objects from China began posing a threat to the island's security over the last few months, reported South China Morning Post. While such low-flying aircraft and drones are difficult to detect in an ordinary system, the Bee Eye has electronically-scanned array radars that help eliminate the blind spot. At present, Taiwan uses Lockheed Martin portable search and target acquisition radars (PSTAR) on those islands.

Officially it is just a research vessel, but China's newly unveiled drone carrier is a clear sign Beijing is rushing to deploy an autonomous swarm of unmanned devices in its push for military supremacy in the Pacific Ocean. State media last month showed the launching of the Zhu Hai Yun -- "Zhu Hai Cloud" -- capable of transporting an unspecified number of flying drones as well as surface and submarine craft, and operating autonomously thanks to artificial intelligence. The 89-metre (292-foot) ship would be operational by year-end with a top speed of 18 knots, vastly increasing China's surveillance potential of the vast Pacific area it considers its zone of influence. "The vessel is not only an unprecedented precision tool at the frontier of marine science, but also a platform for marine disaster prevention and mitigation, seabed precision mapping, marine environment monitoring, and maritime search and rescue," Chen Dake, lab director at the firm that built the carrier, told China Daily. Armies worldwide see drone squadrons as key players in combat, able to overwhelm defence systems by sheer numbers and without putting soldiers' lives at risk, such as with more expensive jets or tanks.

This article is a collaboration with David Gossett, Principal with Infornautics, who builds first mover technologies that have no instruction set and need to be invented from scratch. He believes data has a story to tell if we apply the right machine models. His specialty is unstructured data. This article is intended to be provocative, to summon curiosity into the issues that plague us today when it comes to machine learning. Three years ago, I wrote this article, Artificial Intelligence Needs to Reset. The AI Hype that was supposed to transpire into all-things automated is still far off. Since that time, we've experienced speed bumps that have pointed to issues including lack of model accountability (black boxes), bias, lack of data representation in the training set etc. An AI Ethics movement emerged to demand more responsible tech, increased model transparency and verifiable models that do what they're supposed to do without impairment or harm to individuals or groups, in the process. Our future is Artificial Intelligence. It's been conjectured that this wonderful AI will be our savior.

China has launched the world's first drone carrier, a vessel that will likely be used for military purposes. The ship, Zhu Hai Yun, can be controlled remotely to navigate autonomously in open water. Zhu Hai Yun, launched last week, has a wide deck equipped to carry dozens of unmanned vehicles including drones, unmanned ships and submersibles, reported the South China Morning Post. This also makes it a powerful platform to launch UAVs for military purposes, though Beijing claims the vehicle has been designed for marine research purposes. The drone mothership is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year after sea trials. According to the Chinese state-run Science and Technology Daily, the ship could be an "efficient tool in marine disaster prevention and mitigation, environmental monitoring and offshore wind farm maintenance besides delivering accurate marine information."