When Amazon first debuted same-day delivery service in Boston, it seemed a promising alternative to poorly-stocked, overpriced, or low-quality supermarkets in neighborhoods like Roxbury. But the service didn't extend there, despite delivering to residents on all sides of Roxbury. Amazon was assailed for overlooking the comparatively lower-income Boston neighborhood, and the company, in its defense, said customer data and delivery logistics played into the decision. Amazon didn't overlook just Roxbury, either. According to a Bloomberg report, in Chicago, New York, Boston, Atlanta, and other cities, black residents were half as likely to live in same-day delivery areas as white residents, despite paying the same $99 membership fee. Today, data collected on individuals, when combined with artificially intelligent systems, are used for rolling out new services, populating newsfeeds, targeting advertisements, determining healthcare treatment plans, even levying court rulings.

Last year, BuzzFeed News went looking for surveillance flight paths from the FBI and Homeland Security. Peter Aldhous describes how they did it. They used machine learning -- a random forest algorithm to be more specific -- to find the spy planes, which as you might expect tended to circle around more than normal flights.

The U.S. military says it conducted two drone strikes Thursday against Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab fighters in southern Somalia. The results of the strikes were still being assessed, a statement from the U.S. Africa Command said. The strikes took place near the Banadiir region of Somalia, an area that includes the capital, Mogadishu, the statement said. "We continue to work in coordination with our Somali partners and allies to systematically dismantle al-Shabaab and help achieve stability and security throughout the region," the statement said. The strikes were carried out under new authorities that President Trump granted the Pentagon in March.

Hiroki Iwasa, a 40-year-old IT entrepreneur with an MBA, grows strawberries in seven high-tech greenhouses where computers set the temperature and humidity to optimal growing conditions and ensure the rows of bushes are sprayed with water at precise times. He markets his Migaki Ichigo-brand strawberries directly to fancy department stores in Tokyo, where they go for as much as ¥1,000 apiece, as well as to customers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, where Japanese produce has an excellent reputation. Such changes, while small, come as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushes to reform the nation's hidebound farm industry, where small-plot holdings still dominate, the average farmer is over 66 years old and the sector's contribution to the economy has fallen by 25 percent since its peak in 1984. They should also make Japan more resilient if the United States tries -- as Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has hinted -- to pry open Japan's markets for rice and beef, which are protected by tariffs. Iwasa was running an IT company and working on an MBA in Tokyo when his coastal hometown of Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture, an area famous for strawberries, was hit by the March 2011 tsunami.

Summary: What are the real threats of job loss from real and AI enhanced virtual robots? How do we position ourselves and our children to succeed in this new environment? Data Scientists Automated and Unemployed by 2025! is the title of an article we wrote almost exactly a year ago. If you thought that job loss due to automation was going to be restricted to traditional industries you'll need to think again. It's clear this is going to encompass jobs we thought until recently were immune from automation.

It's almost scary to think that the world as we know it may well be run by Artificial Intelligence (AI) one day. While the risk of an imminent AI disruption of the labour market may sound like a fantasy, those with the most advanced AI technologies at hand think that AI is an imminent threat. They say an Industry 4.0 or cyber physical systems (CPS) revolution is coming whether we like it or not. AI in the labour market means the use of intelligent software to optimise the delivery of services by humans. However, in a recent meeting with U.S. governors, business magnate Elon Musk warned: "AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilisation and I don't think people fully appreciate that … [AI] is the scariest problem."

Elon Musk's grand plan of moving beyond passenger cars to truly revolutionize transportation just got a bit grander. In addition to developing an electric 18-wheeler that Tesla plans to unveil next month, Musk wants to make the thing drive itself. Tesla is working with Nevada authorities to begin testing a robo-rig prototype at some point in the not-too-distant future. "Our primary goal is the ability to operate our prototype test trucks in a continuous manner across the state line and within the States of Nevada and California in a platooning and/or Autonomous mode without having a person in the vehicle," Tesla's Nasser Zamani told officials with the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, according to Reuters. Assuming Tesla can figure out how to make battery tech work for long-haul trucking (no easy feat), adding autonomy to the equation makes perfect sense.

Recently, while speaking at the US National Governors Association, the chief executive of Tesla, Elon Musk called for worldwide regulation of artificial intelligence before it's too late and was a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization. But is this risk that humanity facing if we don't regulate AI's? Today on The Daily, we're talking to James Harland, Associate Professor at RMIT University about why it's so important to regulate our AI advances.

A viral app that added Asian, Black, Caucasian and Indian filters to people's selfies has removed them after being accused of racism. The update which launched yesterday was met with backlash - with many people criticising it for propagating racial stereotypes. The filters drew comparison with'blackface' and'yellowface' - when white people wear make up to appear to be from a different ethnic group. The filters drew comparison with'blackface' and'yellowface' - when white people wear make up to appear to be from a different ethnic group. The app uses Artificial Intelligence to transform faces.

Reports of satellite navigation problems in the Black Sea suggest that Russia may be testing a new system for spoofing GPS, New Scientist has learned. This could be the first hint of a new form of electronic warfare available to everyone from rogue nation states to petty criminals. On 22 June, the US Maritime Administration filed a seemingly bland incident report. The master of a ship off the Russian port of Novorossiysk had discovered his GPS put him in the wrong spot – more than 32 kilometres inland, at Gelendzhik Airport. After checking the navigation equipment was working properly, the captain contacted other nearby ships. Their AIS traces – signals from the automatic identification system used to track vessels – placed them all at the same airport.