You know a technology is reaching mainstream adoption when the government is commissioning reports into growing it as a sector. That is exactly what has just happened for AI. A new independent report looking at the state of AI in the UK, and what we need to do to remain world-leaders, has just been released. It is no surprise that the focus is on growing the talent pool & making more data readily available for training. A couple of years ago, start-ups using AI were sexy and all the pitches we saw majored on how they were adopting this emerging technology. Just like cloud computing before it, AI is in the transition from cutting edge new technology to just another tool in the start-up toolbox.

Last June Volume, a leading magazine on architecture and design, published an article on the GoogleUrbanism project. Conceived at a renowned design institute in Moscow, the project charts a plausible urban future based on cities acting as important sites for "data extractivism" – the conversion of data harvested from individuals into artificial intelligence technologies, allowing companies such as Alphabet, Google's parent company, to act as providers of sophisticated and comprehensive services. The cities themselves, the project insisted, would get a share of revenue from the data. The company does take cities seriously. Its executives have floated the idea of taking some struggling city – Detroit?

When asked whether the introduction of AI would give people a better quality of life allowing them to spend more time with the families, on the beach, etc., Angelo Cangelosi said that this would certainly result in new job requirements, rebalancing the economy, salaries, etc. "If we manage this with expertise and good planning, then I'm an optimist," he concluded. UK authorities want to expand the use of AI to introduce robots into health care and allow self-driving cars, among other things. The draft plan includes educating workers to operate AI and promoting the use of AI to businesses and supporting research in this sphere.

The software industry lobby Nasscom is setting up centres of excellence on artificial intelligence (AI) and data sciences for a better understanding on the emerging technologies, a top official has said. With the tech world getting divided between whether or not to regulate AI, the body feels that technologies should be freely allowed to mature first before any regulation comes in, its president R Chandrasekhar has said. "We are setting up a centre of excellence on AI and data sciences in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. They will look at mapping the resources available in the country, promoting startups in that area and also best practices globally, including regulatory aspects," he told PTI recently. He, however, did not offer the investment that will go into these proposed centres nor a timeline as to when the first centre of excellence will be functional.

As America increases its military footprint in some of Africa's most dangerous trouble spots, confronting extremist affiliates of Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the risk of intelligence failures and more combat deaths is mounting. U.S. special forces who accompanied Niger's military at a meeting of village leaders in Tongo Tongo on Oct. 4 were working in the country's treacherous western borderlands, a region of shifting tribal allegiances, opaque motives and ethnic grudges going back decades, all feeding into a growing jihadist problem. Four Americans and five Nigerian troops died after leaving Tongo Tongo and being ambushed and heavily outgunned by fighters armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The militants are believed to be from a Malian-led militia, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahel, which declared allegiance to the overall militant organization in 2015. One error appears to have been downplaying the danger.

Energy, insurance, telecommunications, and many other industries could also have drones in their future.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a nebulous concept that lies over the horizon. The fourth industrial revolution, powered by AI, is already here and these advanced systems are helping us scale human knowledge and expertise. AI represents a significant economic opportunity for the United Kingdom. In fact, recent research from IBM and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) found that around 20% of British firms have already deployed practical applications of AI. To gain a greater understanding of the potential impact of AI and what the future could hold, the UK House of Lords recently issued a call for views from interested parties.

"PREDICTION IS VERY difficult, especially if it's about the future," said Physics Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr. Bohr was presumably talking about the vagaries of quantum mechanical subatomic life, but the statement holds true at other scales too. Predicting the future is tough, and any good scientist knows enough to hedge his or her bets. That's what error bars are all about. It's why science usually proceeds methodically: hypotheses are formulated, experiments conducted, observations collated, and data evaluated.

There will be many people who will say it does exist and has working technologies, hardware and software. It is an interesting error in thinking to focus on closed system devices/products as to what Ubiquity (IoT3) is. Devices are used to get across the point of various types of connections and networks being accessed. But more importantly in a full implementation of the concept of Ubiquity (often described as the IoT) devices may not even be owned anymore. The ownership of devices ceases to be important if you can own your digital identity, can verify it and establish your own ecosystem of assets in Blockchain.

The transport ministry will speed up work to develop snow removal vehicles with self-driving technology so trials can be carried out on expressways starting this winter, officials have said. The ministry plans to test the vehicles on other public roads from fiscal 2018, using data from the Michibiki quasi-zenith satellite network behind Japan's version of the Global Positioning System set to debut in April. The use of snow removal vehicles requires skilled drivers, but most are getting too old, and the shortage is generating concerns. In fiscal 2015, people over 61 accounted for 19 percent of the drivers, up from 3 percent in 1998. Snow removal vehicles with self-driving technology will detect obstacles with sensors and warn drivers when they deviate from lanes or approach guardrails.