Hype over artificial intelligence reached its zenith in 2017, with CIOs, consultants and academics touting the technology as potentially automating anything from business and IT operations to customer connections. Yet through the first calendar quarter of 2018 several media organizations reported on the dangers of AI, which involves training computers to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence. "There's been so much hype in the media about it and this is just journalists trying to extend the hype by talking about the negative side," says Thomas Davenport, a Babson College distinguished professor who teaches a class on cognitive technologies. Perhaps, but the concerns are hardly new and very persistent, ranging from fears about racial, gender and other biases to automated drones running amok with potentially lethal consequences. Get the latest insights with our CIO Daily newsletter.

"I think that they're a little underselling what I think is a real potential for the work," says Thad Starner, a professor in Georgia Tech's College of Computing. "Like, say, controlling the airplanes on the tarmac at Hartsfield Airport here in Atlanta. You've got jet noise all around you, you're wearing these big ear-protection things -- wouldn't it be great to communicate with voice in an environment where you normally wouldn't be able to? You can imagine all these situations where you have a high-noise environment, like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, or even places with a lot of machinery, like a power plant or a printing press. This is a system that would make sense, especially because oftentimes in these types of or situations people are already wearing protective gear.

As France's youngest president at 40 years old, Emmanuel Macron is known for his strong handshake, boyish good looks, and his controversial method of selecting a mate. Recently, he set his sights on artificial intelligence, announcing a government program to invest $1.8 billion into AI over the next four years. The cornerstone of all this spending will be in the healthcare sector, where the aim is to make predictive and personalized care a reality using AI and big data. This prompted us to take a look at the ten most funded French AI startups according to Crunchbase. Founded in 2014, Shift Technology has raised $40 million to develop an AI-based insurance fraud detection service.

As Mick Jagger famously sang, "What a drag it is getting old". Though with a net worth of about $360 million and holding court in the pantheon of rock-n-roll gods, Mick Jagger is probably greying about as well as anyone could at age 74. He certainly will have nothing to worry about when the day comes that he can no longer do the rooster strut; Jagger can afford the best elder care money can buy. Most of us probably won't have the financial means to hire a team of 20-something-year-old nurses in short, black latex skirts to take care of us when we become dirty old men. The best most of us can hope for is not to be locked in a closet and left to stew in our own feces.

A coastal area in Fukushima Prefecture's Minamisoma, which seven years ago was overtaken by tsunami debris, is set to be resurrected as a major robotics research site. The Fukushima Robot Test Field, a 50-hectare site being built by the Fukushima Prefectural Government, is meant to be used by both domestic and foreign companies to develop robotics technologies. The site will be the central facility for the Innovation Coast project, the aim of which is to create new industries in tsunami-hit areas. But some of the participants are still waiting for the project to show signs of life. At the site, large fields for drone tests and a telecommunications tower are scheduled to be completed by June.

A drone that took off from Syria and penetrated Israeli airspace in February was armed and on an Iranian mission to carry out an attack in Israeli territory, the Israeli military said Friday. The drone was shattered by helicopter gunships, preventing the attack, according to the military, which did not disclose the supposed target. The February episode set off a day of intense battle, escalating the conflict between Israel and Iran, one of several overlapping conflicts in the Syrian war. Israel's announcement on Friday, hours before the American-led strikes against Syria, added another element of volatility into an already tense region. The strikes launched by the United States, Britain and France against three chemical weapons storage and research facilities did little to assuage Israel's concerns about the Iranian buildup across its northern frontier, according to experts, and the announcement could be intended to bolster Israel's case for taking its own military action against Iran's presence in Syria.

But once in a while, under just the right conditions, you get something entirely new: a futuristic alloy called metallic glass. The amorphous material's atoms are arranged every which way, much like the atoms of the glass in a window. Its glassy nature makes it stronger and lighter than today's best steel, and it stands up better to corrosion and wear. Although metallic glass shows a lot of promise as a protective coating and alternative to steel, only a few thousand of the millions of possible combinations of ingredients have been evaluated over the past 50 years, and only a handful developed to the point that they may become useful. Now a group led by scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Northwestern University has reported a shortcut for discovering and improving metallic glass -- and, by extension, other elusive materials -- at a fraction of the time and cost.

New applications with technology are simply amazing. From new uses of data analytics to artificial intelligence and machine learning, our world is rapidly transforming before our eyes. But what are the ethical considerations for safe use? Excerpt: Google services such as its image search and translation tools use sophisticated machine learning which allow computers to see, listen and speak in much the same way as human do. Google also uses machine learning in its Nest "smart" thermostat products – by analyzing how the devices are used in households they become better at predicting when and how their owners want their homes to be heated, helping to cut down on wasted energy.

The latest drone-related patent has been awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the HorseFly Truck Launched Drone Package Delivery System from the Workhorse Group. Numbers of companies are coming forward and getting on board and the drone delivery patents that have been awarded is going up as well. "We feel that the patented HorseFly truck launched drone package delivery system is the first major change to the last mile delivery process since the invention of the package delivery truck. Drivers appreciate the fact that the HorseFly system is fast, reliable, and efficient and last mile package delivery is changing, and the HorseFly delivery system is leading the way," said Steve Burns, Workhorse CEO. Studies have shown that last-mile drone delivery can be both more-efficient and greener than deliveries via truck.

Chinese facial recognition technology developer SenseTime Group Ltd may be worth as much as $US4.5 billion. SenseTime says investors including Chinese e-commerce company Suning.Com and Singapore state fund Temasek Holdings helped close its series-C fundraising round. But the biggest pile-in came from Alibaba, which topped the round up to $US600 million. The company would not disclose its total valuation, but "two people with knowledge of the matter" told Reuters it brought SenseTime's value up to around $US4.5 billion. The company has claimed it "set a world record" for the amount raised in a single funding round by an AI firm. A series-B push led by China's CDH Investments and state-backed fund Sailing Capital in July valued the startup at over $1.5 billion.