Make a million dollars via AI that benefits humanity. You might not realize that you are already sitting on a million dollars and merely need to embark on a relatively modest effort to turn the hidden treasure trove into an in-your-hands pile of cash. And at the same time be benefiting humanity. Well, in the second part, benefiting humanity, it's a core requirement to get the money and likely will be immediately followed by fame and acclaim if you like that kind of thing. There is a contest underway that promises a prize of $1,000,000 to someone or some entity that has managed to innovatively perform an outstandingly good deed with AI that demonstrably benefits humanity. It is legit and on the up-and-up.

It's also the first aircraft "to be designed, engineered and manufactured in Australia in more than 50 years," Boeing said in a statement. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the drones will protect the country's pricier combat aircraft like F-35 stealth fighters and their pilots in the future, and drone production will help with a current crisis, fighting the effects of the coronavirus. "The Loyal Wingman program has helped support around 100 high-tech jobs in Australia. Such projects will be critical to bolster growth and support jobs as the economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic," Morrison said in a statement. The Australian government says it has invested about $40 million into the project.

Paolo Pirjanian is an Armenia born in Iran and fled to Denmark as a teen. From the time he was young, he was fascinated by computers and started coding in his bedroom. After getting his PhD in robotics, Paolo became an early leader in the field of consumer robotics who has 16 years of experience developing and commercializing cutting-edge home robots. He worked at NASA JPL and led world-class teams and companies at iRobot, Evolution Robotics, and others. In 2016, Paolo founded Embodied, Inc. with the vision to build socially and emotionally intelligent digital companions that improve care and wellness and support people in living better lives every day.

In a preprint paper, researchers at Alphabet's DeepMind and the University of California, Berkeley propose a framework for comparing the ways children and AI learn about the world. The work, which was motivated by research suggesting children's learning supports behaviors later in life, could help close the gap between AI and humans when it comes to acquiring new abilities. For instance, it might lead to robots that can pick and pack millions of different kinds of products while avoiding various obstacles. Exploration is a key feature of human behavior, and recent evidence suggests children explore their surroundings more often than adults. This is thought to translate to more learning that enables powerful, abstract task generalization -- a type of generalization AI agents could tangibly benefit from.

CAMBRIDGE – We live in a world with an ever-widening chasm between the skills of the "average" worker and the capabilities demanded by frontier technologies. Robots, software, and artificial intelligence have increased corporate profits and raised demand for skilled professionals. But they replace factory, sales, and clerical workers – hollowing out the traditional middle class. This "skills gap" contributes to deepening economic inequality and insecurity and ultimately to political polarization – the signal problems of our time. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, heedless of the political consequences for Europe and Germany, has issued a ruling that risks sacrificing the euro and possibly even the European Union.

The wartime prime minister Winston Churchill's victorious address to the nation marked the end of the war in Europe, on 8 May 1945. But his speeches through the course of the war galvanised and heartened those fighting and enduring the dangers and privations of World War II. "Winston Churchill's words inspired a nation," says the victorious prime minister's great grandson. "What we want to do is to help inspire a new generation in their struggle against Covid." As the country - and much of Europe - marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day in the most unusual of circumstances, Randolph Churchill is launching a competition for young people to try their hand at a rousing speech. The key to writing a galvanising address is to "never give in", he told BBC Breakfast, adding: "They shouldn't be shy, they just crack on and do it, try their best, and if they don't succeed the first time, they should try again and again and again."

Why should robots have artificial social intelligence? According to Heather Knight, assistant professor of computer science, if robots are going to help in hospitals or work with people in factories, they will need to be adapted to our social conventions. From the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, this is "Engineering Out Loud" -- a podcast telling the stories of how research and innovation at the University is helping change the world. You can listen to the full series here.

Human brains use dreams to replay recent events and help form memories -- and experts have gotten the first glimpse of this process in action, a study has reported. When we sleep, our brains replay the firing patterns our neurons underwent while awake -- a process that experts refer to as'offline replay'. It is thought that offline replay underlies so-called memory consolidation, the way that recent memories acquire a more permanent representation in the brain. Although replay had previously been observed in animals, it had not be witnessed before in humans. Using implanted electrodes, US researchers were able to show that people's brains replayed the neuron activity of a memory game while they slept.

Biosphere 2 was touted as a new Noah's Ark, a new Garden of Eden, a way to test how humans might colonize other worlds and study the effects of greenhouse gasses on Biosphere 1 -- aka the Earth. Eight carefully vetted and uniquely skilled "Biospherians" would enter the gleaming glass and steel vivarium in the desert in Oracle, Ariz., (that's right) in 1991 and spend two years inside the sealed environment with plants and animals, even a coral reef, collected from all over the world and try to sustain themselves with what they could harvest inside. It was a real-life version of the prophetic 1972 science-fiction film "Silent Running" from director Douglas Trumbull ("2001: A Space Odyssey") and co-writers Michael Cimino ("Heaven's Gate") and Steve Bochco (TV's "Hill Street Blues"). But were the "Biospherians" really scientists? Or were they the offshoot of a cult-like group that had started life as a pseudo-theater collective in hippie-era San Francisco led by a "genius" named John Allen, who is described by one enthusiastic at first follower as a "mind musician"?

The remote-controlled, four-legged machine built by Boston Dynamics was first deployed in a central park on Friday as part of a two-week trial that could see it join other robots policing Singapore's green spaces during a nationwide lockdown.