Automation and robotisation are becoming more prominent in the media, although the uninitiated might be forgiven for still being in the dark about them. Machine learning is happening right now. Artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to massive amounts of data are being harnessed to automate more and more of the things that, hitherto, we have had to do manually. Right now most of this data is centralized and in the hands of a few key players in Silicon Valley. And this centralization of data, the fuel of machine learning, has also attracted an astounding number of the world's leading machine learning researchers -- the industry's true superstars -- who, in recent years, have been recruited from universities by companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY – Last month, AlphaGo, a computer program specially designed to play the game go, caused shock waves among aficionados when it defeated Lee Sidol, one of the world's top-ranked professional players, winning a five-game tournament by a score of 4-1. Why, you may ask, is that news? Twenty years have passed since the IBM computer Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, and we all know computers have improved since then. But Deep Blue won through sheer computing power, using its ability to calculate the outcomes of more moves to a deeper level than even a world champion can. Go is played on a far larger board (19 by 19 squares, compared to eight by eight for chess) and has more possible moves than there are atoms in the universe, so raw computing power was unlikely to beat a human with a strong intuitive sense of the best moves.

Aloft Hotel spokeswoman Ashley Chapman said the robot's performance of mundane tasks frees staff more time to interact with people. Detroit -- In "Star Wars," R2-D2 and C-3PO were involved in nothing less than vanquishing an evil empire. Aloft Hotels, which has a location in downtown Detroit, introduced its newest employee Tuesday -- Botlr. The three-foot robot, which looks like R2-D2 sans arms and legs, brings amenities to guests in the hotel lobby or right to their rooms. Moving on wheels, the machine has an enclosed bin that can hold anything from toothpaste to bottled water to whatever else the guest might desire.

It has been a nightmare of a PR week for Microsoft. It started with the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, Phil Spencer, having to apologise for having scantily clad female dancers dressed as school girls at a party thrown by Microsoft at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). He said that having the dancers at this event "was absolutely not consistent or aligned to our values. That was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated". The matter was being dealt with internally and so we don't know who would have been responsible and why they might have thought this was going to be a good idea.

With driverless cars already on California roads, it is not too soon to ask whether we can program a machine to act ethically.

The University of Science and Technology of China has recently unveiled an eerily realistic robot named Jia Jia. While she looks more human-like than that creepy ScarJo robot, you'll probably still find yourself plunging head first into the uncanny valley while looking at her. Jia Jia can talk and interact with real humans, as well as make some facial expressions -- she can even tell you off if she senses you're taking an unflattering picture of her. "Don't come too close to me when you are taking a picture. It will make my face look fat," she told someone trying to capture her photo during the presscon.

With black hoods over their heads, five people trapped in a chain-link enclosure listen to an ominous monologue. "Hello, my delicious friends," the voice purrs. "I've lived here for five years, and I've spent much of that time collecting delicate morsels like yourselves to help me with my little experiments." Edward Tandy, the homicidal cannibal who has caged this group in his basement, lays out the rules of his game: They have 45 minutes to solve the puzzles inside and escape. Once time runs out, gas will be pumped in, putting the captives to sleep.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

If you spent any amount of time online in the past few days, you'll have noticed plenty of chatter about chat bots, tiny little computer programs that live inside messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Skype, or Slack that are designed to spit out useful bits of data like weather forecasts or the latest headlines using an interface--chat!--that requires little or no training to understand. It's a nice idea, maybe, but you know what's the single most obvious thing to me in the days since Mark Zuckerberg took the stage in San Francisco to proclaim the beginning of the Chat Bot Era? Brands and developers are feverishly trying to figure out in real time, right before our very eyes, where this whole chat bot thing is going. "There's no question that bots are more suited for some kinds of interactions than others," Sam Mandel, CEO of weather app Poncho, which released a weather bot for Facebook Messenger earlier this week, told Motherboard. "We think of it as really a conversation: When we built Poncho we wanted him to be your friend, and that's why we think weather is just a great starting point in the sense that that's a conversation that everyone has with their friends." Unlike my friends, however, Poncho doesn't quite understand the nuances of the Attitude Era: As Mandel explains it, Poncho decided to go all-in with a Facebook Messenger bot because people "have already voted with their time."

Confident about continuing growth opportunities for the Indian job market, United States-based consultancy giant Korn Ferry Hay Group feels the outsourcing story is no more about cheap labour and the key drivers going forward will be value addition and technology. "There would continue to be opportunities for the Indian job market for sure. But substitution of certain jobs by technology would mean that the role of labour and labour arbitrage is not that important. "So I think the technology solutions to issues has an impact. I think technology is going to play a role in what those opportunities is going to be in the future," Korn Ferry Hay Group CEO Stephen D. Kaye told PTI in an interview. Kaye, who heads one of the world's largest management consultancies and was on a visit to India, said outsourcing was a response to a particular situation where companies were looking for cheap labour but the situation is now changing with the advent of technology and artificial intelligence. Many global leaders, including United States President Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner in the presidential race, have voiced concerns about outsourcing in their bid to save local jobs. This has led to fears about loss of business for back-office service providers from India. Experts believe advances in the field of automation and robotics are expected to radically change the job market and to survive this period, employees are required to re-skill to remain relevant in the job market. With the increasing levels of sophistication and artificial intelligence, I don't think it is cheaper labour that is going to be the driver," Kaye said.