A man has been able to move all four of his paralysed limbs using a groundbreaking mind-controlled exoskeleton, scientists have said. The tetraplegic 30-year-old, known only as Thibault, said his first steps in the robotic suit felt like being "the first man on the Moon". The system, which works by recording and decoding brain signals, was trialled in a two-year study by French researchers at biomedical research centre Clinatec and the University of Grenoble. Scientists conceded the suit was an experimental treatment far from clinical application but said it had the potential to improve patients' quality of life and autonomy. Wearing the robotic limbs, Thibault was able to walk and move his arms using a ceiling-mounted harness for balance.

I find these questions very interesting. During some recent study, I wrote a response to a different question'Will having robots around make people more or less lonely? I postulated that we will be lonelier when Robots offer an alternative to Human friendships. Suitable human companions will not be available, to those who seek them, because those potential companions all have chosen robotic friends. We have to factor in our human nature into all AI related questions.

Welcome to our monthly curation of emerging technology news tidbits and trends that help inform the research we do for our Avanade Trendlines program. Let's discuss any thoughts you have in the comments. Technology: AI for drug discovery Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong biotech startup, has been working with the University of Toronto to leverage machine learning to create a new drug to prevent tissue scarring. Bringing a new drug to market usually costs billions of dollars and takes years. Insilico Medicine created its new drug in just 46 days. Insilico Medicine reached this milestone using reinforcement learning, an AI technique that hasn't yet fully impacted the enterprise.

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India (CJI) S A Bobde said on Tuesday that the Supreme Court has proposed to introduce a system of artificial intelligence (AI) which would aid in the administration of justice delivery. The CJI however made it clear that there should not be any impression that introduction of AI would ever substitute the judges. "We propose to introduce, if possible, a system of artificial intelligence. There are many things which we need to look at before we introduce it. We do not want to give the impression that this is ever going to substitute the judges," Justice Bobde said at the Constitution Day function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).

If a Russian or Chinese Anti-Satellite (ASAT) weapon streamed into space and exploded U.S. military satellites, friendly forces would instantly become very vulnerable to significant and extremely destructive enemy attacks - space-based infrared missile detection could be destroyed, GPS communications could be knocked out, guided weapons could jam and derail before hitting their targets and war-critical command and control could simply be "taken out." Any, all or part of this could happen in as little as 10 to 15 minutes once a satellite attacking missile is launched from the ground. Lives will hang in the balance as alerts are sent through U.S. command and control and decision-makers scramble to determine the best countermeasure with which to protect its space assets. Space war is no longer a distant prospect to envision years down the road --- it is here. Recognizing the seriousness of this vulnerability, the Pentagon, U.S. Space Command, Missile Defense Agency and industry are moving quickly to integrate Machine Learning and AI into space-based systems and technology.

Minecraft's open-ended play environment could be ideal for AI research, some researchers say.Credit: Microsoft To see the divide between the best artificial intelligence and the mental capabilities of a seven-year-old child, look no further than the popular video game Minecraft. A young human can learn how to find a rare diamond in the game after watching a 10-minute demonstration on YouTube. Artificial intelligence (AI) is nowhere close. But in a unique computing competition ending this month, researchers hope to shrink the gap between machine and child -- and in doing so, help to reduce the computing power needed to train AIs. Competitors may take up to four days and use no more than eight million steps to train their AIs to find a diamond.

Last Thursday (November 21), the Cambridge Union Society hosted what turned out to be the most popular debate of term: THB Artificial Intelligence will bring more harm than good. The chamber was filled to its maximum capacity, with people having to be turned away at the door. A wealth of news outlets, including the BBC, CNN and the New Scientist attended to cover the event. This fervour of attention is hardly surprising: IBM Research's Project Debater, the first artificial intelligence platform that can debate humans on complex topics, was the leading'speaker' on both the proposition and opposition. The night opened with a brief introduction from the principal investigator of Project Debater, Noam Slonim.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is continuing to break boundaries and researchers at the University of Alberta push this notion further, including PhD student Dustin Morill. Morill, a fourth-year PhD student working with computing science professor Michael Bowling, is working on algorithmic game theory. He is also apart of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) and has been a key contributor to DeepStack, a project seeking to have artificial intelligence develop techniques for games like poker and checkers to continually reassess strategy. The Gateway interviewed Morill who is continuing to contribute to AI research and see what he had to say about the field.

This is reportedly the first time in the world that artificial intelligence is used to give consumers up-to-date information on animal welfare. Arla Finland's CEO Kai Gyllström explains that the purpose of the new innovative app is to meet consumer expectations. We wanted to make the familiar Arla Milkchain even more transparent for the consumers by giving them a new opportunity to follow the cows' conditions as they actually are. Dairy farms can also take advantage of the AI data to improve their own operations, says Gyllström. The Arla Iris app collects and combines data on cleanliness, nutrition and health, as well as outdoor activities, movement, and everyday operations at the Tikka organic dairy farm.

Today, Amazon announced a new approach that it says will put machine learning technology in reach of more developers and line of business users. Amazon has been making a flurry of announcements ahead of its re:Invent customer conference next week in Las Vegas. While the company offers plenty of tools for data scientists to build machine learning models and to process, store and visualize data, it wants to put that capability directly in the hands of developers with the help of the popular database query language, SQL. By taking advantage of tools like Amazon QuickSight, Aurora and Athena in combination with SQL queries, developers can have much more direct access to machine learning models and underlying data without any additional coding, says VP of artificial intelligence at AWS, Matt Wood. "This announcement is all about making it easier for developers to add machine learning predictions to their products and their processes by integrating those predictions directly with their databases," Wood told TechCrunch.