The architect of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee today talked about some of his concerns for the internet over the coming years, including a nightmarish scenario where artificial intelligence (AI) could become the new'masters of the universe' by creating and running their own companies. Masters of the universe is a reference to Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, regarding the men (and they were men) who started racking up multi-million dollar salaries and a great deal of influence from their finance roles on Wall Street and in London during the computerised trading boom pre-Black Monday. Speaking at the Innovate Finance Global Summit today, Berners-Lee envisioned a world where AI systems start to develop decision-making capabilities and the impact this will have on the fairness of our economic systems. He laid out the scenario where AI could decide which companies to acquire and took this to its logical conclusion: "So when AI starts to make decisions such as who gets a mortgage, that's a big one. Or which companies to acquire and when AI starts creating its own companies, creating holding companies, generating new versions of itself to run these companies. "So you have survival of the fittest going on between these AI companies until you reach the point where you wonder if it becomes possible to understand how to ensure they are being fair, and how do you describe to a computer what that means anyway?" Although it's hard to imagine shedding too many tears over the loss of the decision makers responsible for the 2007 crash, the scenario does threaten to wipe out an entire industry and raises some serious questions about how fair a financial system without any human involvement can be. This is similar to the fear laid out recently by AI-sceptic Elon Musk to Vanity Fair: "Let's say you create a self-improving AI to pick strawberries and it gets better and better at picking strawberries and picks more and more and it is self-improving, so all it really wants to do is pick strawberries.

As it has more than 12,500 patents, eight Nobel prizes, and a 140-year history of field-testing crazy ideas, it should surprise no one that AT&T would be an important player in artificial intelligence. "AT&T is a backbone of the internet," explains Nadia Morris, head of Innovation at the AT&T Connected Health Foundry. The company manages wireless, landline, and even private secure networks to power connectivity for both individuals and corporations. All these networks generate incredible volumes of data that is ripe for machine analysis. AT&T has built AI and machine learning systems for decades, using algorithms to automate operations such as common call center procedures and the analysis and correction of network outages.

Josh Poduska is a Senior Data Scientist in HPE's Big Data Software Group. Josh has 16 years of experience in the analytical sciences with an emphasis on machine learning and statistical applications. He spent the last five years focusing on advanced analytical solutions with MPP columnar databases. At HPE he is part of the Vertica team and uses Vertica and its machine learning library to help organizations solve their toughest data challenges. What are the main technical challenges you typically face in this era of Big Data Analytics?

The ritualized procreation in the novel--effectively, state-sanctioned rape--is extrapolated from the Bible. " 'Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her,' " Atwood recited. "Obviously, they stuck the two together and out came the baby, and it was given to Rachel.

When you move to another country as an adult, the language flows around you like a river. Perhaps a child can immediately abandon himself to the current, but most older people will begin by picking out the words and phrases that seem to matter most, which is what I did after my family moved to Cairo, in October of 2011. It was the first fall after the Arab Spring; Hosni Mubarak, the former President, had been forced to resign the previous February. Every weekday, my wife, Leslie, and I met with a tutor for two hours at a language school called Kalimat, where we studied Egyptian Arabic. At the end of each session, we made a vocabulary list. In early December, following the first round of the nation's parliamentary elections, which had been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, my language notebook read: On many days, I went to Tahrir Square, to report on the ongoing revolution. If I heard unfamiliar words or phrases, I brought them back to class. The following month, I learned "tear gas," "slaughter," and "Can you speak more slowly?" "Conspiracy theory" appeared in my notebook on the same day as "fried potatoes." Sometimes I wondered about the strangeness of Tahrir-speak, and what my Arabic would have been like if I had arrived ten years earlier. But it would have been different at any time, in any place: you can never step into the same language twice. Even eternal phrases took on a new texture in the light of the revolution. After I could understand some of the radio talk shows that cabbies played, I realized that callers and hosts exchanged Islamic greetings for a full half minute before settling down to heated arguments about the new regime. Our textbook was entitled "Dardasha"--"Chatter"--and it outlined set conversations that I soon carried out with neighbors, using phrases that would never be touched by Tahrir: "May peace, mercy, and the blessings of God be upon you." One of our teachers, Rifaat Amin, prepared a five-page handout entitled "Arabic Expressions of Social Etiquette." This supplemented "Dardasha," which also featured some lessons about social traditions, including the evil eye, the belief that envy can cause misfortune. In "Dardasha," icons of little bombs with burning fuses had been printed next to the kind of phrase that, even during a revolution, qualified as explosive: "Your son is really smart, Madame Fathiya."

Adam Marcus will host a session, Human-assisted AI at B12: 10 lessons in giving humans superpowers, at the O'Reilly Artificial Intelligence Conference, June 26-29, 2017, in New York City. Subscribe to the O'Reilly Data Show Podcast to explore the opportunities and techniques driving big data, data science, and AI. Find us on Stitcher, TuneIn, iTunes, SoundCloud, RSS. In this episode of the O'Reilly Data Show, I spoke with Adam Marcus, co-founder and CTO of B12, a startup focused on building human-in-the-loop intelligent applications. We talked about the open source platform Orchestra,for coordinating human-in-the-loop projects; the current wave of human-assisted AI applications; best practices for reviewing and scoring experts; and flash teams.

With more than 12,500 patents, eight Nobel prizes, and a 140 year history of field-testing crazy ideas, no one should be surprised that AT&T would be an important player in artificial intelligence. "AT&T is a backbone of the internet," explains Nadia Morris, Head of Innovation at the AT&T Connected Health Foundry. The company manages wireless, landline, and even private secure networks to power connectivity for both individuals and corporations. All these networks generate incredible volumes of data ripe for machine analysis. AT&T has built AI and machine learning systems for decades, using algorithms to automate operations such as common call center procedures and the analysis and correction of network outages.

Cassini, the spacecraft that has been orbiting Saturn for 13 years, is running out of fuel and nearing the end of its mission. Over the next few months, Cassini will dive into the space between Saturn and its rings, moving closer and closer to the planet until it eventually disintegrates in its atmosphere in September. This week, NASA released a short animation showing these final moments, set to a majestic, brassy overture. "On its final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn, fighting to keep its antenna pointed at Earth as it transmits its farewell," a comforting voice narrates as the music swells. "In the skies of Saturn, the journey ends, as Cassini becomes part of the planet itself."

Cassini, the spacecraft that has been orbiting Saturn for 13 years, is running out of fuel and nearing the end of its mission. Over the next few months, Cassini will dive into the space between Saturn and its rings, moving closer and closer to the planet until it eventually disintegrates in its atmosphere in September. This week, NASA released a short animation showing these final moments, set to a majestic, brassy overture.

At last year's Bafta Game Awards, the developer of Her Story, Sam Barlow, famously so struggled with his three awards that he carried them around in a champagne bucket. This year, indie developer Playdead went one better by winning four for their dystopian puzzle platformer Inside: Artistic Achievement, Game Design, Narrative, and Original Property. After their previous game, Limbo, won none from four in 2011, the team at Playdead were delighted to take home so many this year: "We kind of expected to continue the clean slate, so we're very happy." Inside just missed out on the award for Best Game which went to Uncharted 4, continuing a tradition of big-budget titles walking away with the top prize (Fallout 4 in 2016 and Destiny in 2015). It was the second Best Game win in five years for Uncharted 4's developer Naughty Dog after The Last of Us won in 2013.