If artificial intelligence goes off the rails, which many philosophers and tech entrepreneurs seem to think is likely, it could result in rampant activity beyond human control. So some researchers think it's important to develop systems to "interrupt" AI programs, and to ensure the AI can't develop a way to prevent those interruptions. A study, conducted in 2014 by Google-owned AI lab DeepMind and the University of Oxford, sought to create a framework for handing control of AI programs over to human beings. In other words, a "big red button" to keep the software in check. "If such an agent is operating in real-time under human supervision, now and then it may be necessary for a human operator to press the big red button to prevent the agent from continuing a harmful sequence of actions -- harmful either for the agent or for the environment -- and lead the agent into a safer situation," reads the team's paper, titled "Safely Interruptible Agents" and published online with the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.

A sign on a door located on the ninth floor of UCLA's Boelter Hall reads, "Beware of Robot." Inside, stationed at the center of the room, is Tony. He stands more than 5 feet tall with a black torso, dark red rolling base, two large arms, an Internet router on his back and an Xbox One Kinect mounted on his head. Assembled part by part over the past year and costing more than 60,000, Tony has been programmed to open doors, fold clothes and assemble furniture. Surrounding him is a team of researchers who aim to eventually give him human-level cognition.

Algorithms are fundamentally redefining the roles of worker and manager. This article is part of an MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. Editor's Note: This is the first in a special series of commissioned essays MIT Sloan Management Review will be publishing in Frontiers over the Spring and Summer of 2016. Each essay gives the author's response to this question: "Within the next five years, how will technology change the practice of management in a way we have not yet witnessed?" Science fiction writer William Gibson once said, "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

Dogo goes up stairs, rolls out in pairs, and fits on a squadmate's back. Dogo is a new remotely operated robot made by Israel's General Robotics, and inside its tiny frame it carries another, more familiar weapon. And then they reveal their deadly secret. Nestled sideways inside the Dogo is a 9mm Glock 26 compact pistol. It's like the kind of thing Nerf would make, only it's real and instead of foam darts this shoots actual bullets to kill actual people. Like the Nerf toy, Dogo is remotely controlled from a special handset, which displays live video and lets the human remotely fire the weapon.

The river Seine is the fourth-highest it's been in a century, with the water threatening to rise as high as 21 feet. The river winds through Paris, and it threatens life, limb, and history itself. Already museums are moving precious works to higher ground, and the storm causing the flooding has killed over a dozen across Europe. Here, instead, is a focus on a much smaller slice of the disaster. Château de Chambord, a country estate built for King Francis I, is partially underwater.

More than a decade ago, the keynote speaker at a major annual cybersecurity conference strode into the spotlight and predicted the death of the password. "They just don't meet the challenge for anything you really want to secure," he told the audience of computer experts in San Francisco. The speaker was Bill Gates, the preeminent cyber-prophet of the day, but his forecast has not yet come true. We've certainly gotten closer to the password's demise. Millions of people use their fingerprints to unlock their smartphones every day, and tech companies are experimenting with new security features that rely on biometrics like user's speech habits or iris patterns.

Bing uses search, social, and other relevant data to make intelligent predictions about upcoming events, like sporting events, reality TV shows, award shows, and political elections. In this episode, Jennifer Marsman chats with Kushal Lakhotia and Walter Sun about the machine learning that powers Bing's predictions of who will win sporting matches like the NCAA March Madness tournament, the NBA playoffs, the NFL season, Wimbledon, the Cricket World Cup, the English Premier League, and more.

Nearly 250 million video surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the world, and chances are you've been seen by several of them today. Most people barely notice their presence anymore -- on the streets, inside stores, and even within our homes. We accept the fact that we are constantly being recorded because we expect this to have virtually no impact on our lives. But this balance may soon be upended by advancements in facial recognition technology. Soon anybody with a high-resolution camera and the right software will be able to determine your identity.

Have you ever begun a Google search, only to click on the words the box lays before you? Tagged a friend's face when Facebook prompted it? Have you spoken to your iPhone? The artificial intelligence technology behind these tools is neither self-aware nor homicidal. But they are driven by a computational technique called machine learning, which is, at its simplest, a way to teach machines to teach themselves.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a surprising new job in Silicon Valley: bot-writer. "Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools," the Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote. These personalities, Dwoskin reported, will soon be joined by more specialized bots developed by other companies, among them Sophie and Molly, "nurse avatars" that talk to patients about their medical conditions. There's even a "guru avatar" in development, designed to teach meditation. These products are exciting and futuristic--just a decade ago, the possibility of conversing with a computer program seemed like science fiction.