When it comes to artificial intelligence, forget the scary movies about rebellious robots or the dire warnings of a dystopian world of disconnected humanity imagined by some popular writers. AI promises, rather, to change our lives in profound ways we are just beginning to experience, according to a ground-breaking survey produced by Stanford University. Stanford is taking the long view of AI, with a project called One Hundred Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100). The study, written by a panel of AI experts from multiple fields including healthcare, will continue as an ongoing activity, with periodic reports examining how AI will touch different aspects of daily life. The first of those reports, "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030," looks into the effects that AI advancements will have on a typical North American city a little more than a decade from now.

India's patent laws allow for reverse-engineering of certain technologies. A prime example of this reverse-engineering is in the pharmaceutical space, where Indian pharma companies are allowed to reverse-engineer drugs, especially life-saving ones. These drugs may have been developed by pharma majors in other parts of the world--and then introduced into western markets--after India-based outsourcing firms had helped them out with clinical trials, data gathering and reporting to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or its equivalent to get these drugs passed. Indian courts have continued to allow such reverse-engineering of drugs--famously prompting Bayer AG's then CEO Martin Dekkers to say at a conference a few years ago, "We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for western patients who can afford it."

Over the last one year, Intuitive Surgical has generated returns in excess of 50%. An economic moat, a lack of competition and financial out-performance are some of the reasons for this excellent run. In this analysis, we look at the factors that can impact Intuitive's growth going ahead: Competition from other players: Intuitive Surgical faces little competition in the robotic surgery market, as there are significant barriers to entry and the company holds more than 1,000 patents worldwide. So far Intuitive has enjoyed a free run. TransEnterix was expected to be the challenger with its SurgiBot Systems.

DARPA's sophisticated LUKE bionic arm is ready for production, eight years after its development began and a couple of years after it was approved by the FDA. Before the bionic limb makes the transition into a commercial product, though, the military division is giving war veterans access to its initial production run. DARPA's Biological Technologies Office director Justin Sanchez has recently delivered two LUKE arms to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for use by a couple of vets in need of a prosthetic limb. LUKE, which used to be known as the DEKA Arm System, is the brainchild of Segway creator Dean Kamen. Its name stands for Life Under Kinetic Evolution, but as you can guess, it was also inspired by Luke Skywalker whose hand was replaced with a robotic appendage in The Empire Strikes Back. The arm can understand multiple commands at any one time, giving it the ability to move as naturally as possible.

When I was a scrawny little chap, shortest in my high school class, I always wanted a super power. Wanted doesn't capture the feeling. I would have given a limb for a super power. I read a lot of books back then (and now) and landed on a super power that had something to do with the brain. I eventually landed on Prof. Xavier of the X-Men.

When I was a scrawny little chap, shortest in my high school class, I always wanted a super power. Wanted doesn't capture the feeling. I would have given a limb for a super power. I read a lot of books back then (and now) and landed on a super power that had something to do with the brain. I eventually landed on Prof. Xavier of the X-Men.

IBM Watson is known for its work in identifying cancer treatments and beating contestants on Jeopardy! But now the computing system has expertise in a new area of research: neuroscience. Watson discovered five genes linked to ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease, IBM announced on Wednesday. The tech company worked with researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. The discovery is Watson's first in any type of neuroscience, and suggests that Watson could make discoveries in research of other neurological diseases.

Connected hospitals with intelligent messaging In today's hospitals, pacemakers, defibrillators and oximeters are all connected to the internet and share vitals immediately with doctors, in turn speeding response times. Hospitals have technicians, nurses, staff, billing departments, insurance providers, patients and patients' families as stakeholders, each with different requirements of information about the care given to patient. Unified Inbox offers an AI-based unified cloud IoT messaging platform for internet of things devices to connect various stakeholders, giving them the freedom to receive different messages at different frequency, with different senses of urgency in different mediums of their choice. Unified Inbox launched this at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore as "CUBE," the IoT-secured messaging gateway for healthcare. The artificial intelligence makes the hospitals connected, giving peace of mind to patients and their loved ones while improving efficiency in the overall hospital management and interaction with all stakeholders.

Could internet searches identify dodgy drugs? A Microsoft researcher has trained an algorithm to predict whether a drug will be recalled, using queries made through Microsoft's Bing search engine. "We know that every once in a while there will be a batch of a pharmaceutical drug that will have something wrong about it," says Elad Yom-Tov at Microsoft Research in Israel. "People will start asking about that drug more often or more than they usually do." Pharmaceutical companies and regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) monitor drugs on the market to keep tabs on adverse effects and potential faulty batches.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. In July, the Food and Drug Administration issued guidance on three topics important to the future of medical innovation. These welcome guidelines demonstrate the FDA is doing the best it can to ensure it does not interfere inappropriately with advances in medical technology that rely on processing information.