Artificial intelligence (AI) can result in large number of job losses and the United Nations should adopt guidelines to have social control over use of such technologies, said Nobel laureate and social entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus. "AI for me is the most dangerous thing. We are excited that all the things will be done by the machine... at the same time lots of people will be losing their jobs. We can do that, but we are not doing that because we are so busy reducing the cost of production and make the profit margin larger, not to benefit you and me," said Yunus in an interview with ET ahead of the 8th Social Business Day to be held at the Infosys campus in Bengaluru. Yunus, who is globally regarded as the father of microfinance, believes that businesses do not talk about the flip side or the "curse" of AI. "There should be guidelines on the use of (AI) technology. United nations should adopt these guidelines and every nation should certify and articulate it more," said the social entrepreneur from Bangladesh, claiming that AI bots could eventually take over complex works from human beings.

Microsoft this week announced its facial-recognition system is now more accurate in identifying people of color, touting its progress at tackling one of the technology's biggest biases. But critics, citing Microsoft's work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, quickly seized on how that improved technology might be used. The agency contracts with Microsoft for a set of cloud-computing tools that the tech giant says is largely limited to office work, but which can also include face recognition. Columbia University professor Alondra Nelson tweeted, "We must stop confusing'inclusion' in more'diverse' surveillance systems with justice and equality." Today's facial-recognition systems more often misidentify people of color because of a long-running data problem: The massive sets of facial images they train on skew heavily toward white men.

Microsoft's facial-recognition technology is getting smarter at recognizing people with darker skin tones. On Tuesday, the company touted the progress, though it comes amid growing worries that these technologies will enable surveillance against people of color. Microsoft's announcement didn't broach the concerns; the company merely addressed how its facial-recognition tech could misidentify both men and women with darker skin tones. Microsoft has recently reduced the system's error rates by up to 20 times. In February, research from MIT and Stanford University highlighted how facial-recognition technologies can be built with bias. The study found that Microsoft's own system was 99 percent accurate when it came to identifying the gender of lighter-skinned people, but only 87 percent accurate for darker-skinned subjects.

A recent report on artificial intelligence (AI) by an Indian government think tank foresees the country as an AI hub for the developing world. Research analyst Shashank Reddy writes about the possibility of that happening. India is the latest country to join the race to lead the AI revolution, which is still in the making. The world's richest - and most powerful - countries have long been in this competition. It cuts across all spheres of national power, from the economy to the military, because the idea is that leadership in AI will enable global dominance. The two biggest powers so far have been the United States and China, with each investing heavily in AI and its applications.

The Russian president has become the latest person to warn of the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI), actually predicting that whoever masters the technology first can rule the world. Addressing students last week, Vladimir Putin said that there are legitimate concerns about AI and that its development will produce "colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict now." Going further, Putin warned that "the one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world." He added: "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for all humankind," according to Russia Today. Putin added that he does not want to see the technology "monopolized," and added that Russia would share it with the world if Moscow develops advanced AI first.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to make the process of training machine-learning models more efficient. Currently, training a ML model requires the test data be labeled, which requires humans identify an an image or specific phrases in text that the algorithm should learn to recognize. The more labeled data the system can review, the more complete its training and the better the eventual results. Amassing enough clean, consistently labeled data to train an algorithm is expensive and time consuming. If, for example, a company wants to analyze user reviews of its products, it will need "at least 90,000 reviews to build a model that performs adequately," according to AltexSoft, a software R&D engineering firm.

From autonomous cars to flying taxis to electric-powered aircraft, technological innovations in transportation vehicles seem to be moving faster than Elon Musk's express loop underneath Chicago. But when it comes to regular roads and traffic systems, we still seem to be stuck in the far right lane. The US has the worst traffic on the planet, with Los Angeles drivers leading the race to nowhere by spending an average of 102 hours per year in traffic jams. In 2014, the country spent $165 billion on highway construction, operation, and maintenance, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That can buy a lot of asphalt and concrete, but what else?

BRUSSELS – Member nations of the global chemical weapons watchdog voted Wednesday to give the organization the authority to apportion blame for illegal attacks, expanding its powers following a bitter dispute pitting Britain and its Western allies against Russia and Syria. An 82-24 vote provided the two-thirds majority needed to enlarge the purview of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The organization was created to implement a 1997 treaty that banned chemical weapons, but lacked a mandate to name the parties it found responsible for using them. Many participating nations saw the inability to assign responsibility as a senseless hamstring, especially after fatal chemical attacks during the war in Syria. Russia opposed adding a new license to the agency's portfolio, saying that was a decision that belonged to the United Nations.

AI is everywhere: inside smartphones, on wearable devices, at hospitals and airports, and even in cars. The technology is shaking up economies, pushing companies to adapt and forcing governments to take a closer look at its implications. As AI becomes more ubiquitous, it is also polarizing public opinion, with fears over man's ability to control the technology, its long-term impact on labour markets and concerns over data collection and privacy. The late physicist and author Stephen Hawking warned that AI could be the "worst event in the history of our civilization." Similarly alarmist, Elon Musk, founder of electric car manufacturer Tesla described AI as more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

The Royal Bank of Canada is to invest $2 million into an Israeli-based university spin off to support the development of AI-based cybersecurity techniques.