The Food and Drug Administration last year approved its first autonomous, artificially intelligent medical device. In a decision that seemed to take a page from science fiction, the FDA gave the OK to the IDx-DR, a device that uses artificial intelligence to analyze images of the back of a patient's eye to detect if they have diabetic retinopathy. It's the first FDA-approved device to provide a screening decision without requiring a clinician to interpret the results--which means providers who aren't eye specialists, such as primary-care physicians, can rely on it to screen for the eye disease. "Today's decision permits the marketing of a novel artificial intelligence technology that can be used in a primary-care doctor's office," Dr. Malvina Eydelman, director of the division of ophthalmic and ear, nose and throat devices at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said at the time. "The FDA will continue to facilitate the availability of safe and effective digital health devices that may improve patient access to needed healthcare," she added.

The Energy Department has a new chief information officer and a plan to bring its infrastructure into the modern age. DOE CIO Chris "Rocky" Campione outlined four primary objectives to modernize and rationalize the IT infrastructure that supports his agency's wide scope of programs. In fiscal 2020, operational visibility, delivery excellence, delivering innovation and workforce development will be the name of the game. "How do we make sure -- and that's everything from making sure we're reskilling and retraining the federal workforce," Campione said of the fourth objective, on Federal Monthly Insights -- A New Approach in IT Modernization. "But's also looking at how do we provide the information to our workforce so that we can make good decisions?"

File photo - U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment watch as CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade lands after an advising mission at the Afghan National Army headquarters for the 203rd Corps in the Paktia province of Afghanistan December 21, 2014. Warrior Maven: What is the primary purpose of the Army's AI Task Force? Matty: The Army AI Task Force was established with a Secretary of the Army directive in October of 2018. There are four thrusts or top initiatives from the Secretary's directive. One component is we are leveraging AI to help our talent management in human resources.

Artificial intelligence is infiltrating every industry, allowing vehicles to navigate without drivers, assisting doctors with medical diagnoses, and mimicking the way humans speak. But for all the authentic and exciting ways it's transforming the tasks computers can perform, there's a lot of hype, too. As Jeremy Achin, CEO of newly minted unicorn DataRobot, puts it: "Everyone knows you have to have machine learning in your story or you're not sexy." The inherently broad term gets bandied about so often that it can start to feel meaningless and can be trotted out by companies to gussy up even simple data analysis. To help cut through the noise, Forbes and data partner Meritech Capital put together a list of private, U.S.-based companies that are wielding some subset of artificial intelligence in a meaningful way and demonstrating real business potential from doing so. One makes robots that can whir around shoppers to help workers restock shelves. Another scans recruiting pitches for unconscious bias. A third analyzes massive data sets to make street-by-street weather predictions. To be included on the list, companies needed to show that techniques like machine learning (where systems learn from data to improve on tasks), natural language processing (which enables programs to "understand" written or spoken language), or computer vision (which relates to how machines "see") are a core part of their business model and future success. Find all the details on our methodology here. The honorees span categories like human resources, security, insurance, and finance, with healthcare, transportation, and infrastructure startups best represented on the list.

Rayfield Byrd knows when it's time to wake up every morning. The 68-year-old Oakland, Cal., resident hears a voice from the living room offering a cheery good morning. A little after 8 a.m. each day, a small yellow robot named Mabu asks Byrd how he's doing. Byrd has Type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure, and about three years ago, he had surgery to implant a microvalve in his heart to keep his blood flowing properly. To stay healthy, he takes four medications a day and needs to exercise regularly.

Russia likes to boast of its robots - but at the same time it seems to have a somewhat troubled relationship with them. It has endured a series of very public robotic mishaps, but all is not lost. Amid much fanfare and praise for the Roscosmos space agency, Russian robot Fedor was launched into space on board a Soyuz 14 spacecraft in August. Fedor made history as the first such robot ever to be sent into space by Russia, and within moments he was reporting on his progress and all was apparently going to plan.But then, mission control in Houston broke the news that Fedor's attempt to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) had to be aborted because of a technical problem. To be fair to Fedor, he was not to blame. Despite state media touting him as a major breakthrough, and other incorrect reports suggesting that he was piloting the spacecraft, he did little but talk.

Artificial intelligence is infiltrating every industry, allowing vehicles to navigate without drivers, assisting doctors with medical diagnoses, and mimicking the way humans speak. But for all the authentic and exciting ways it's transforming the tasks computers can perform, there's a lot of hype, too. As Jeremy Achin, CEO of newly minted unicorn DataRobot, puts it: "Everyone knows you have to have machine learning in your story or you're not sexy." The inherently broad term gets bandied about so often that it can start to feel meaningless and can be trotted out by companies to gussy up even simple data analysis. To help cut through the noise, Forbes and data partner Meritech Capital put together a list of private, U.S.-based companies that are wielding some subset of artificial intelligence in a meaningful way and demonstrating real business potential from doing so. One makes robots that can whir around shoppers to help workers restock shelves. Another scans recruiting pitches for unconscious bias. A third analyzes massive data sets to make street-by-street weather predictions. To be included on the list, companies needed techniques like machine learning (where systems learn from data to improve on tasks), natural language processing (which enables programs to "understand" written or spoken language), or computer vision (which relates to how machines "see") to be a core part of their business model and future success. Find all the details on our methodology here. The honorees span categories like human resources, security, insurance, and finance, with healthcare, transportation, and infrastructure startups best represented on the list.

Starship Capital managing partner John Meyer discusses how artificial intelligence will price people out of the market. Could artificial intelligence (AI) take your job away? Tech adviser and investor John Meyer said, for a lot of workers, it's already happening and many people don't even realize it. "There's a monumental societal change happening really right under our nose here," Meyer, who is also a managing partner at Starship Capital, told FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria." "You see huge efforts in AI happening that's already affecting the population."

Artificial intelligence can help us cope with the growth of work. Whether its Amazon drones putting couriers out of business, AI-powered health checkers diagnosing patients in hospitals, or algorithms at Microsoft providing the perfect recipe for whisky, the growing threat of artificial intelligence (AI) as a global job killer has been a prevailing media story that seems just too good to be false. But the rhetoric is not supported by most recent studies, which suggest that while skill shifts across all industries will certainly be considerable, net job loss over the next 15 years is likely to be negligible. Well, many assumptions imbedded in the "automageddon" narrative are highly questionable: that automation creates few jobs whether short or long term, that whole jobs can be automated, that the technology is perfectible, that organizations can seamlessly and quickly deploy AI, that human thought and action can be replicated, and that it is politically, socially and economically feasible to apply these technologies. Then there are the macro factors.

Increasingly sophisticated killer AI robots and machines could accidentally start a war and lead to mass atrocities, an ex-Google worker has told The Guardian. Laura Nolan resigned from Google last year in protest at being assigned to Project Maven, which was aimed at enhancing U.S. military drone technology. She has called for all unmanned autonomous weapons to be banned. AI killer robots have the potential to do "calamitous things that they were not originally programmed for," Nolan explained to the Guardian. She is part of a growing group of experts that are showing concern over the development of artificial intelligence programmed into war machines.