A robot pilot is learning to fly. It has passed its pilot's test and flown its first plane, but it has also had its first mishap too. Unlike a traditional autopilot, the ROBOpilot Unmanned Aircraft Conversion System literally takes the controls, pressing on foot pedals and handling the yoke using robotic arms. It reads the dials and meters with a computer vision system. The robot can take off, follow a flight plan and land without human intervention. ROBOpilot is a drop-in system meaning that the pilot's seat is removed and replaced with the robot.

Venture capitalists are the startup experts, the ones who have their finger on the pulse of which fledgling companies will boom and which will bust. As part of Business Insider Prime's comprehensive coverage of the startups that will strike gold in 2019, we asked VCs to name the startups they think are going to be hot this year. They told us about companies they currently have in their portfolios, as well as ones they haven't put any money into yet but are at the center of positive news. And from those discussions, one particular group of startups came up repeatedly: those that specialize in artificial intelligence tech. From AI robots to software that uses machine learning to automate tasks, Silicon Valley is chock full of AI-focused startups.

This month, images of the burning Amazon rainforest have reverberated around the world. These fires, believed to have been set deliberately by cattle ranchers and loggers, have now spun out of control, leading to unprecedented destruction and dire warnings from environmentalists that the crisis will lead to the loss of a precious ecosystem and an acceleration of climate change. Brazil has rejected aid and the crisis has been blamed on the country's president Jair Bolsonaro, who critics say has encouraged farmers and loggers to burn far more of the forest than they typically do to clear land in order to graze cattle. But elsewhere, technology is helping some communities prevent and tackle wildfires...

Karlsruhe, August 29, 2019 – At the SEMANTiCS conference in Karlsruhe from 9 to 12 September, representatives from industry and science will discuss the use of semantic technologies and artificial intelligence. FIZ Karlsruhe is a co-organizer, and with good reason: the digital change has reached and affected research data, methods and processes. Efficient information infrastructures have a key role to play in mastering the new challenges. FIZ Karlsruhe will present its spectrum as a Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure in various roundtable discussions, presentations and with its own stand. SEMANTiCS is one of the leading conferences in the field of semantic technologies and artificial intelligence. FIZ Karlsruhe, together with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), has succeeded in bringing this renowned international event to Karlsruhe for its 15th anniversary.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming smarter every day, beating world champions in games like Go, identifying tumors in medical scans better than human radiologists, and increasing the efficiency of electricity-hungry data centers. Some economists are comparing the transformative potential of AI with other "general purpose technologies" such as the steam engine, electricity, or the transistor. But current AI systems are far from perfect. They tend to reflect the biases of the data used to train them and to break down when they face unexpected situations. They can be gamed, as we have seen with the controversies surrounding misinformation on social media, violent content posted on YouTube, or the famous case of Tay, the Microsoft chatbot, which was manipulated into making racist and sexist statements within hours.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning must be judiciously used, such as when monitoring internet of things devices, says David De Roure, professor of e-research at the University of Oxford, who offers insights on IoT risk management. "We can use AI and ML to improve the resilience of our systems and improve the responsiveness to the changing circumstances," De Roure says in an interview with Information Security Media Group during IoT India Congress held in Bengaluru. "But every time we add anything to these already complex systems [for IoT devices], we are introducing new complexity, new vulnerabilities, new opportunities both for failure and for susceptibility to attack." De Roure is a professor of e-research at the University of Oxford. From 2009 to 2013 he held the post of National Strategic Director for e-Social Science and was subsequently a Strategic Advisor to the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

Tiger Global Management and WestBride Capital leads a fresh funding round for $42 million (approx ₹287 crore) in edtech startup Vedantu. While, other investors in the round include Accel, Omidyar India, TAL Education Prince Maimilian of Liechtenstein. The Bengaluru-based startup will use the infused funds towards building awareness about the category and the brand, and in its technology operations. "Vedantu has been the first to reimagine the concept of tutorials in the country and create an exponential shift towards the online LIVE Tutoring model. Vamsi and team are extremely focused on improving the educational outcomes of students using their unique online offering," said Anand Daniel, partner at Accel Partners.

When Amazon announced plans to "up-skill" 100,000 American employees for a more tech-based workplace, the company said that over the last five years its fastest-growing jobs have been spawned by systems that gather, process and analyze data. For example, the number of data mapping specialists Amazon employs increased by 832 percent during that time; the number of data scientists grew 505 percent, and the number of business analysts rose 160 percent. But it's also worth noting the dramatic growth in non-technology roles that have been touched, in one way or another, by A.I. Jobs such as logistics coordinator, process improvement manager and transportation specialist expanded by over 400 percent. "A.I. creates a brand-new class of products that will require humans to build, maintain and deploy," said Armen Berjikly, senior director of strategy for Weston, Fla.-based Ultimate Software. "A self-driving car will not make mechanics obsolete and will create a new class of programmers to boot. Analytics software will require a human to interpret, challenge and distribute results in the human world, and so on."

Microsoft's first unveiled its HoloLens 2 headset at Mobile World Congress back in February, promising a release later this year. Reuters now reports that the HoloLens 2 headset will go on sale in September. Microsoft's head of AI and research, Harry Shum, reportedly revealed next month's release date during an onstage appearance at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Thursday. While Shum said September for HoloLens 2, a Microsoft statement suggests he may have misspoke or referred to prototype devices being shared with more customers. "As we announced in February, Microsoft HoloLens 2 will begin shipping later this year," says a Microsoft spokesperson.

Elon Musk and Jack Ma matched wits publicly for the first time. And boy, they didn't disappoint. An onstage debate between China's richest man and the Tesla Inc. boss left a largely Chinese audience both awestruck and dumbfounded as the pair sparred over everything from the existence of aliens to the preservation of human consciousness. Musk, alternating between tech visionary and larger-than-life Bond villain, argued that AI will soon surpass the human race; that civilization may end and hence humankind needed to explore the cosmos (specifically Mars); and that people are essentially dumb creatures circumscribed by genes. But Musk, who appeared discombobulated at times following a late trans-Pacific flight, met his match in a fellow billionaire who parried him at every turn.