This metal marvel might just be the soldier of the future... but far from being science fiction, this one is real. Affectionately known as Ivan the Terminator, Project Iron Man is a humanoid military robot currently being developed in Russia. For years, the country has been trying to keep up with the U.S. and China, which are building robots, drones and other military hi-tech machines with great success. The aim of the Russian robot soldier is to'replace the person in the battle or in emergency areas where there is a risk of explosion, fire, high background radiation, or other conditions that are harmful to humans', Komosomolskaya Pravda reported. This humanoid military robot is currently being developed in Russia.

Can software identify complex personality traits simply by analysing your face? Faception, a start-up based in Tel Aviv, Israel, courted controversy this week when it claimed its tech does just that. And not just broad categories such as introvert or extrovert: Faception claims it can spot terrorists, paedophiles – and brand promoters. "Using automated feature extraction is standard for face recognition and emotion recognition," says Raia Hadsell, a machine vision engineer at Google DeepMind. The controversial part is what happens next.

At Santa Monica video game maker Naughty Dog, it doesn't take long to notice that co-responsibilities are commonplace. Pitting bosses against each other to decide on characters, gameplay and script is a key strategy the firm credits for its succession of highly-rated games. The latest, "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End," topped the charts in several countries with 2.7 million copies sold worldwide during its first week on the market this month. The 60 Sony Playstation 4 exclusive culminates Naughty Dog's series featuring fictional treasure hunter Nathan Drake. Naughty Dog has long cultivated an unusually free-flowing development process that empowers anyone at any stage to share their ideas -- and defend them.

This week's top Machine Learning stories, including robots to drive your car, diagnose your medical images, pick up your mess, and more! Machine Learning is one of the most exciting fields in the world. Every week we discover something new, something amazing, something revolutionary. It's incredible, but it can also be overwhelming. That's why we created This Week in Machine Learning!

Next time you apply for a job, it could be a computer algorithm deciding whether or not you fit the bill. This is because clever, self-learning programs are getting better than human recruiters at analysing vast amounts of data gleaned from application forms, CVs (curricula vitae or resumes), and social media profiles. Not only can they see if your credentials match the basic requirements of the job description, they can identify personality traits from the way you've expressed yourself on paper and online. These algorithms try "to automate the 20-to-50 things the best recruiters do consciously or unconsciously" when shortlisting candidates, says Jon Bischke, chief executive of Entelo, a recruitment tech firm. But he doesn't believe we'll ever reach the point where the computer makes the final decision.

Both research teams have picked the college campus as their starting point. They believe observing interactions between thousands of students and their faculty will help them develop a conversational system that has an EQ to match its IQ. The potential for emotional awareness already sets this AI apart from Siri. Digital assistants on the phone rely on rule-based technologies to come up with appropriate responses to your questions. So, in a way, the answers are scripted.

The consumer electronics company has invested in AI startup Cogitai to build intelligent systems that will learn from their own experiences in the world. "We have a shared vision for where AI needs to go," Dr. Satinder Singh, the co-founder of Cogitai, told Engadget. "The next wave will be'continual learning.' It's the idea that machine intelligence will continually grow as it interacts with the world." Continual learning isn't just about creating smart devices that sense your presence or virtual assistants that understand you better.

A student in Ashok Goel's class last semester had a question: How long could the computer programs, or "agents," they were building take to solve problems? Since it was an online course, the student posted the question to the group discussion board. One teaching assistant replied, pointing to a portion of the assignment that set a 15 minute limit. The student clarified that their agent was running a little slow, and could take a bit longer. "It's fine if your agent takes a few minutes to run," she wrote.

We accept that to err is human. When our electronic counterparts fail us--whether its baggage screening software or the latest artificial intelligence--we are quick to shun their advice in the future. That has big implications as machines infiltrate the workplace, offering services once provided by human colleagues. University of Wisconsin researchers recently sought to test how we might get along with our future AI coworkers. The researchers asked 160 college undergraduates to forecast scheduling for hospital rooms, an unfamiliar task.

Elon Musk's contributions to society know no bounds: his latest scheme is intended to save humanity from being destroyed by artificial intelligence (AI). The billionaire, known for garnering a massive amount of wealth and attention with his revolutionary projects of PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX, has consistently warned against AI, recently calling it humanity's greatest existential threat. His belief of the detriment AI may cause has led him to pool forces with other well-known tech entrepreneurs to establish an investment fund intended for researchers to pursue actions with a positive social impact. The 1 billion fund is slated to assist humans in staying at least one step ahead of technology. According to a statement released by the group of investors, AI's surprising history makes it difficult to "predict when human-level AI might come within reach."