It's been just a few months since Lockheed Martin gave the US Army the most powerful laser weapon ever developed, a ground vehicle–mounted system that can burn through tanks and knock mortars out of the sky. Now the US Air Force wants its own toy, so Lockheed's engineers are back in the lab, crafting the kind of weapon Poe Dameron could get down with. Decades after science fiction writers and directors imagined worlds of killer beams flying back and forth, reality is catching up. This spring defense contractor Raytheon became the first to destroy a target with a laser fired from a helicopter. Raytheon is also building a laser-firing, drone-killing dune buggy.

To the editor: The Times' article on whether cutting corporate taxes will boost the wages of American workers fails to address critical circumstances that are likely to lead to a devastating economic crash. We are being tickled a little now with things like hamburger kiosks and self-driving cars, but all of this is just the beginning. If corporations spend to increase production, they most likely will spend it to automate at the expense of workers. This will mean fewer people will be able to afford their products, leading to lower corporate profits and stock sales by wealthy investors. The likely result will be a severe economic crash much like, if not worse than, what our country experienced in 1929, 1987 and 2008.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, robots will apparently take over about five million jobs. It is the latest in a series of figures economists have released projecting the impact that Artificial Intelligent systems and machines will have on the human workforce. Economist and director of consultants Alpha Beta, Andrew Charlton, says that automation is affecting predominantly white-collar jobs more and more than it ever has in the past. The jobs most at risk of being replaced by machines are those in administrative and routine white-collar office functions. Furthermore, some industries where machines already play a large part, like manufacturing and production, will see further robot substitution.

Artificial muscles inspired by the Japanese folding technique of origami could give robots the power to lift up to 1,000 times their own weight. US researchers have crafted a cheap new material that will let the machines carry out smoother, less rigid, and more human-like movements. The advance offers a leap forward in the field of soft robotics, which are fast replacing older generations of automatons. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have crafted cheap, artificial muscles for robots that give them the power to lift up to 1,000 times their own weight. Researchers built dozens of muscles, using metal springs, packing foam or plastic in a range of shapes and sizes.

In the hopes of staying ahead of the enemy, the US army is testing a futuristic exoskeleton that gives soldiers superhuman abilities. The exoskeleton uses artificial intelligence to provide additional power and mobility to soldiers, and allows them to carry heavier loads. Early tests show that the exoskeleton has increased productivity anywhere from two to 27 times. It is unclear when, or if, the US Army plans to roll out the exoskeletons to all soldiers. The frame fits around the soldier's legs, and is attached to a belt worn around the waist.

WASHINGTON: A research arm of the US intelligence community just wrapped up a competition to see who could develop the best facial recognition technology. The challenge: identify as many passengers as possible walking on an aircraft boarding ramp. Of all the entries, it was a Chinese start-up company called Yitu Tech that walked away with the US$25,000 prize this month, the highest of three cash awards. The competition was one of many examples cited in a report by a US-based think tank about how China's military might leverage its country's rapid advances in artificial intelligence to modernise its armed forces and, potentially, seek advantages against the United States. "China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority relative to the United States but rather has become a true peer (competitor) that may have the capability to overtake the United States in AI," said the report, written by Elsa Kania at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and due to be released on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A research arm of the U.S. intelligence community just wrapped up a competition to see who could develop the best facial recognition technology. The challenge: identify as many passengers as possible walking on an aircraft boarding ramp. Of all the entries, it was a Chinese start-up company called Yitu Tech that walked away with the $25,000 prize this month, the highest of three cash awards. The competition was one of many examples cited in a report by a U.S.-based think tank about how China's military might leverage its country's rapid advances in artificial intelligence to modernize its armed forces and, potentially, seek advantages against the United States. "China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority relative to the United States but rather has become a true peer (competitor) that may have the capability to overtake the United States in AI," said the report, written by Elsa Kania at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and due to be released on Tuesday.

The 2015 ACM A.M. Turing Award recognized work I did 40 years ago, so it is understandable that my interests have changed significantly, with my most recent project being a book, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, co-authored with my wife Dorothie. While, at first glance, the book might seem to have nothing in common with my work on cryptography, my Turing Lecture drew a number of parallels I will bring out in what follows. The story starts in March 1975, when the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (NBS), now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), proposed a Data Encryption Standard (DES) to protect unclassified but sensitive data. Whitfield Diffie, with whom I shared the Award, and I quickly realized that DES's 56-bit key size was inadequate and needed to be increased.

Perhaps you remember the iconic theme of the globally popular Kung Fu Panda movies, "You are the secret ingredient!" This meant that self-belief is important and with it great things can be achieved--Po, for example, became the Dragon Warrior. My meaning here is that computer science is both a powerful enabler of rapid advances in all intellectual fields and a disruptor driving furious revolutions in commerce and society worldwide. Computer science is more important and potent than ever! Computing is driving unprecedented rapid change.

"Killer Robots" worry the international community. From 13 to 17 November 2017, the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), also familiarly designed as "killer robots" met for the first time in Geneva (UN Office at Geneva). LAWS are, broadly speaking, autonomous systems (robots) animated by artificial intelligence, which can kill without human decision. As stated in a preliminary paper, the creation of the Group shows an international concern "with the implications for warfare of a new suite of technologies including artificial intelligence and deep machine learning" (UNODA Occasional Papers No. 30, "Perspectives on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems" November 2017: 1). Are we, however, certain that AI will impact only LAWS? Or, rather, could AI impact much more than that, indeed, everything related to politics and geopolitics?