She paints and writes poetry. She's also an artificial intelligence from the movie Her, which imagines how a juiced-up Siri will change our lives. Now, tech companies large and small are racing to make this a reality. You've heard the jargon: AI, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, natural language processing. AI, simply put, is an attempt to make computers as smart, or even smarter than human beings.

In March, Microsoft revealed that it was using the open-world game Minecraft to train AI agents to learn how to do things like climbing a hill. The company also promised to make it available to the public so they could work on their own artificial intelligence projects and research, and it's finally available today. Project Malmo (formerly known as Project AIX) is a Minecraft mod that works on Windows, Mac and Linux, and supports just about any programming language you might want to use. So yes, that means you will need to know how to code – but Microsoft says that even novice programmers can get in on the action. You can learn more about Project Malmo here and grab the mod from this GitHub repository to try it for yourself.

DALLAS/HOUSTON/LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON – When Dallas police improvised a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon. In what appears to be an unprecedented tactic, police rigged a bomb-disposal robot to kill an armed suspect in the fatal shootings of five officers in Dallas. While there doesn't appear to be any hard data on the subject, security experts and law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall another time when police deployed a robot with lethal intent. The strategy opens a new chapter in the escalating use of remote-controlled and semi-autonomous devices to fight crime and protect lives. It also raises new questions over when it's appropriate to dispatch a robot to kill dangerous suspects instead of continuing to negotiate their surrender.

Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. When Dallas police used a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon.

When a police robot killed suspect Micah Johnson in Dallas early Friday morning, it was likely an unprecedented event. But according to Steve Ijames, recently retired assistant chief of police in Springfield, Missouri, and a recognized expert in SWAT tactics, it was not a watershed moment portending a weaponized robotic future. The standoff after the police massacre at a Black Lives Matter protest was unique for a number of reasons, he says. And it was likely the only choice the police had. The police department hasn't elaborated on the device the bomb-defusing robot used or how exactly it killed the suspect, nor on the circumstances that led to the decision.

FinTech business in Africa makes use of A.I & credit technology. MyBucks, a German listed FinTech company that holds three brands GetBucks, GetSure and GetBanked, has said its partnership with NGO (non-governmental organisation) Opportunity International continues to take strides forward in their vision of bringing financial inclusion to the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets – most specifically in Africa. In a move that is contrary to the current trend worldwide where banks are acquiring FinTech companies to add value and expand services, the partnership marks, according to the company, the first time a FinTech company has acquired banks to bridge the gap between the virtual and traditional worlds of banking. This is ultimately to enable faster, more efficient and less expensive access to financial services for clients. The conclusion of the acquisition of four banks and two microfinance institutions from Opportunity International will add Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique to MyBucks' country portfolio and regulatory approval has already been granted in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Activists Cheer On EU's'Right To An Explanation' For Algorithmic Decisions, But How Will It Work When There's Nothing To Explain? I saw a lot of excitement and happiness a week or so ago around some reports that the EU's new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) might possibly include a "right to an explanation" for algorithmic decisions. It's not clear if this is absolutely true, but it's based on a reading of the agreed upon text of the GDPR, which is scheduled to go into effect in two years. Slated to take effect as law across the EU in 2018, it will restrict automated individual decision-making (that is, algorithms that make decisions based on user-level predictors) which "significantly affect" users. The law will also create a "right to explanation," whereby a user can ask for an explanation of an algorithmic decision that was made about them.

For more than 30 years, Gibbs has advised on and developed product and service marketing for many businesses and he has consulted, lectured, and authored numerous articles and books. So the UK has just given itself a national headache. Whether you think the Brexit was the right decision or a dangerous and unmitigated screw-up (as I do), the consequences of the referendum will be non-trivial and take years to complete. But the mechanics of the UK exiting the European Union aside, the question of how people now feel about the Brexit is interesting. Are they awash in jubilation or has buyer's remorse set in?

This week, self-driving Tesla had a fatal crash. Other than that – a lot about robots, can AI create an art, cloning animals and more! Ray Kurzweil and people like him believe the Singularity is just behind the corner and promise the new perfect world. They are very optimistic about the future. But sometimes you should listen to the other side to better understand the problem or vision.

Some scientists are hard at work making a "kill switch" to overpower a too-strong AI and protect us, if needed. Others are specifically teaching robots how to hunt prey, also to help us. Researchers at the University of Zurich's Institute of Neuroinformatics are teaching a small, truck-shaped robot to see, track, and hunt its prey (another small, truck-shaped robot). The predator robot uses an advanced "silicon retina" to see instead of a traditional camera. This "silicon retina," which is modeled after animals' eyes, uses pixels to smoothly detect changes in real time instead of slowly processing frame-by-frame images.