More than 120 million workers globally will need retraining in the next three years due to artificial intelligence's impact on jobs, according to an IBM survey. That's a top concern for many employers who say talent shortage is one of the greatest threats to their organizations today. And the training required these days is longer than it used to be -- workers need 36 days of training to close a skills gap versus three days in 2014, IBM notes in the survey. Some skills take longer to develop because they are either more behavioral in nature such as teamwork and communication or highly technical, such as data science capabilities. "Reskilling for technical skills is typically driven by structured education with a defined objective with a clear start and end," Amy Wright, IBM managing director for talent, wrote in an email.

Growing up, I enjoyed coming home after school to watch Lost in Space. The robot's staccato "Danger Will Robinson Danger" can, even now, crawl up from my subconscious. It helped encourage my imagination as to what robots might become. Sadly, in some ways, the show was more prescient than we knew. The Lost in Space robot, "B-9" was a metallic suit worn and manipulated by actor Bob May (1939–2009).

Warehouse robots are increasingly taking on the task of collecting the items you order online and getting them ready to ship. It used to take 6-8 weeks for an order to arrive - now Amazon and Walmart can get you your stuff the next day. How are online companies getting you your goods so fast? In many cases, robots are helping to speed things along! Recently, I visited Westlake Village, California startup inVia Robotics.

A "robot tax" could help protect American workers from the growing threat of automation, according to the latest policy proposal from Mayor Bill de Blasio's longshot presidential campaign. The Democratic mayor on Thursday proposed a tax against companies that bring in robots to replace humans without giving those workers new jobs. Such firms would have to pay five years' worth of payroll taxes for every person whose job is cut. De Blasio also proposed closing loopholes that allow corporations to deduct job-killing technology investments from their taxes. A new Federal Automation and Worker Protection Agency would use money from that reform and the new robot tax to create new jobs in health care, early-childhood education and green energy, according to the mayor's proposal.

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Today, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced the establishment of the DOE Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO). The Secretary has established the office to serve as the coordinating hub for the work being done across the DOE enterprise in Artificial Intelligence. This action has been taken as part of the President's call for a national AI strategy to ensure AI technologies are developed to positively impact the lives of Americans. DOE-fueled AI is already being used to strengthen our national security and cybersecurity, improve grid resilience, increase environmental sustainability, enable smarter cities, improve water resource management, as well as speed the discovery of new materials and compounds, and further the understanding, prediction, and treatment of disease. DOE's National Labs are home to four of the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world, and we're currently building three next-generation, exascale machines, which will be even faster and more AI-capable computers.

A cutting-edge, £1 million robot ship will cross the Atlantic Ocean unmanned next year to commemorate 400 years since the maiden voyage of the Mayflower to the USA. The Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) will set off on its pioneering, 2,750-mile trip in September 2020, following in the trail of its namesake 400 years earlier. The 15-metre long, catamaran-style ship will be powered by state-of-the-art renewable energy. It will be unmanned but will have marine AI on board, and will be steered from a control room in Plymouth, Devon - where the original Mayflower set off from. It will carry three research pods, containing sensors and other equipment, which scientists hope will pave the way for ground-breaking research into ocean conditions for autonmous navigation.

This article was submitted in response to the call for ideas issued by the co-chairs of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Eric Schmidt and Robert Work. It addresses the first question (part b.) which asks what might happen if the United States fails to develop robust AI capabilities that address national security issues. The year is 2040 and the United States military has limited artificial intelligence (AI) capability. Enthusiasm about AI's potential in the 2010s and 2020s translated into little lasting change. Domestic troubles forced a national focus on budget cuts, international isolation, and strengthening the union. Civil unrest during the 2032 elections worsened everything -- factionalism and partisanship smashed through the walls of the Pentagon. Major initiatives floundered over costs and fear of aiding political opponents.

Homeowners often invest in energy-saving upgrades to make their homes more comfortable and lower their expenses, hoping to see reductions in their upcoming utility bills. Government-backed and utility-backed programs that provide energy-efficient home improvements share the same goal of reducing costs. But measuring the costs and effects of hundreds of different retrofits in thousands of households is a complex process, and the big picture -- which changes should be prioritized for the biggest benefit to the resident -- is difficult to put together. While energy efficiency programs have developed sophisticated models to improve decision making, documented disparities between predicted and realized savings demonstrate that there is still substantial progress that could be made. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), researchers are used to using compute power to dig for answers in piles of untamed data.

Robert Chang, a Stanford ophthalmologist, normally stays busy prescribing drops and performing eye surgery. But a few years ago, he decided to jump on a hot new trend in his field: artificial intelligence. Doctors like Chang often rely on eye imaging to track the development of conditions like glaucoma. With enough scans, he reasoned, he might find patterns that could help him better interpret test results. That is, if he could get his hands on enough data.

Global telecom giant Huawei will continue to go ahead with its India strategy related to artificial intelligence technology as planned, unfazed by the pressure tactics by America through ban and escalating US-China trade war. However, it maintained silence on 5G roll-out plans in the country. We are going to develop Atlas card and servers based on the standard processors, and we are also going to work on MDC (mobile data centre) based on standard processes as well," Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu said. Xu was responding to a question on what will be the company's India strategy following the looming uncertainty over 5G roll-out, at the launch of its AI processor Ascend 910 and AI computing framework MindSpore in Shenzhen recently. The Chinese telecom equipment maker has caught itself in a bitter battle with the US, which has provided a 90-day reprieve to continue doing business as usual with the US suppliers. The US imposed the ban on the company over concerns of security. Washington has also been putting pressure on other countries to restrict operations of the Chinese telecom firm. Restricting the replies around the company's AI plans, Xu said, "Our AI strategy is not necessarily tied to 5G.