In October 2017, we published an article on how legal Artificial Intelligence systems had turned out to be as biased as we are. One of the cases that had made headlines was the COMPAS system, which is risk assessment software that is used to predict the likelihood of somebody being repeat offender. It turned out the system had a double racial bias, one in favour of white defendants, and one against black defendants. To this day, the problems persist. By now, other cases have come to light.

But as it turns out, in the future you may be hit because you're in an SUV rather than because you're, say, an MX5, a Mini Cooper or other small car. That's because cars of the future will be equipped with safety software programmed to hit something the software perceives as being better able to take the force of impact than the smaller object next to it or behind it. In this case, that would be you in your Expedition instead of the Volkswagen Beetle that's weaving in traffic and creating the conditions that would cause a crash in the first place. The concept resembles similar ones used by military, who make surgical strikes meant to avoid collateral damage, but who sometimes accidently hit schools, hospitals or civilians. It begs the question, then – while smart crashing prevents injuries or death, is it fair that someone who buys a Sports Utility Vehicle for the specific safety aspect should have their vehicle the first target of choice when other drivers lose control of their vehicle, whether through mechanical failure or ineptitude?

Autonomous weapons technologies, which rely on artificial intelligence, are advancing rapidly and without sufficient public debate or accountability. Oversight of increased autonomy in warfare is critically important because this deadly technology is likely to proliferate rapidly, enhance terrorist tactics, empower authoritarian rulers, undermine democratic peace, and is vulnerable to bias, hacking, and malfunction. The top competitors in this arms race are the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, and the European Union.

The world's fastest deep learning supercomputer is being used to develop algorithms that can help researchers automatically design neural networks for cancer research, according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The World Health Organisation estimates that by 2025, the number of diagnosed new cases of cancer will reach 21.5 million a year, compared to the current number of roughly 18 million. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Stony Brook University reckon that this means doctors will have to analyse about 200 million biopsy scans per year. Neural networks could help ease their workloads, however, so that they can focus more on patient care. There have been several studies describing how computer vision models can be trained to diagnose cancerous cells in the lung or prostate. Although these systems seem promising they're time consuming and expensive to build.

Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who has announced a new AI startup with USD50 million fund, believes India has the potential to become a world leader in artificial intelligence but the key to this is integrating AI into the country's education system in a massive way. India is at "an inflection point" when it comes to AI or artificial intelligence, Mr. Sikka said. Over the next 20-25 years, AI is going to be "a very, very big disruptor" for the Indian society because what one is seeing now in terms of automation and job losses is just the beginning, said Mr. Sikka, who announced his startup Vianai Systems last week. "But on the other hand, if we are able to bring AI education, the ability to build AI systems to India at a very large scale, and I'm talking about like billion plus people, then India can really leap frog and become the world's leader in artificial intelligence, in AI skill and AI talent," Mr. Sikka told PTI in an exclusive interview. Doing that requires working on multiple dimensions in parallel, he said.

The uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to create 133 million new jobs globally and "drastically change" the UK job market in the coming years, according to a new report. The findings come from the Harnessing the Power of AI: The Demand for Future Skills report, produced by global recruitment agency Robert Walters and market analysis company Vacancy Soft. The report states that around 10.5 million workers will be impacted by the emergence of AI as around 10-30% of jobs in the UK become automated or otherwise change. However, it also finds that artificial intelligence will create a host of new jobs. According to the report, this uptake of AI has increased the demand for data professionals.

The narratives about automation and its impact on jobs go from urgent to hopeful and everything in between. Regardless where you land, it's hard to argue against the idea that technologies like AI and robotics will change our economy and the nature of work in the coming years. A recent World Economic Forum report noted that some estimates show automation could displace 75 million jobs by 2022, while at the same time creating 133 million new roles. While these estimates predict a net positive for the number of new jobs in the coming decade, displaced workers will need to learn new skills to adapt to the changes. If employees can't be retrained quickly for jobs in the changing economy, society is likely to face some degree of turmoil.

It is often the case that, if you look a little too closely at the next big thing in the technology industry, it may start to resemble the last big thing. Or perhaps even one of the many big things that came before that. When many were congratulating Apple for inventing the tablet market with the release of the iPad in 2010, many more were pointing to the touchscreen devices manufactured over the previous two decades by the likes of Palm, FSC, and Nokia – not to mention Apple itself. When the concept of cloud computing began to go mainstream, there were plenty of onlookers who wondered whether this exciting new concept was really just a synonym for the internet, or virtualisation, or software as a service or, simply, 'someone else's computer'. Artificial intelligence – perhaps the biggest and nextest of the current next big things – is also nothing new, many would argue.

Someday you might have a significant relationship with your toaster. With a few silicon chips and the right programming, it'll use its considerable downtime to compose original musical interludes to play while your English muffin is browning. It'll text you Haikus designed to make you smile: This change won't happen by itself. Students are working hard to master the art and science of designing machines that learn, make decisions, create, think. Starting this fall, the Illinois Institute of Technology -- in recent years branding itself as the more brawny "Illinois Tech" -- became the only college in the Midwest to offer an undergraduate major in artificial intelligence, creating the systems that will guide everything from robots to trucks to medical care.

After years of soggy inflation and a long reign by Japan's tight-fisted shoppers, businesses are adopting new methods to lift prices, from artificial intelligence to simple packaging tweaks. Despite many rounds of stimulus, policymakers have failed to jolt households out of the deflationary mindset that followed the 1990s property crash, which meant businesses refused to raise prices for fear of losing customers. Demand-based dynamic pricing, however, has allowed some Japanese retailers to discretely bump up prices without triggering the kind of customer backlash seen in more blatant attempts at repricing in the past. The J. League soccer team Yokohama Marinos, for example, introduced artificial intelligence last year to more closely align ticket prices with demand. "Previously, it was difficult to find the best prices between demand and value of each match," said Hiroshi Nagai, the club's general manager for fan relations. "The most fascinating thing about dynamic pricing is that it can offer more choices to customers."