China has taken down two online robots that appeared to go rogue, with one responding to users' questions by saying its dream was to travel to the US and the other admitting it was not a fan of the Chinese Communist Party. The "chatbots", BabyQ and XiaoBing, are designed to use machine learning artificial intelligence to carry out online with humans. Both had been installed on popular messaging service QQ. The outbursts are similar to ones suffered by Facebook and Twitter but underlines the pitfalls for AI in China, where censors strictly control online content. According to posts circulating online, BabyQ, one of the chatbots developed by Chinese firm Turing Robot, responded to questions on QQ with a "no" when asked whether it loved the Communist Party. In other images of a text conversation online, one user declares: "Long live the Communist Party!"

I've been following cybersecurity startups and hackers for years, and I suddenly discovered how hackers are always ahead of the rest of us -- they have a better business model funding them in their proof of concept (POC) stage of development. To even begin protecting ourselves from their well-funded advances and attacks, cyberdefense and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies must be funded at the same level in the POC stage. Today, however, traditional investors not only want your technology running, they also need assurances that you already have a revenue stream -- which stifles potential new technology discovery at the POC level. And in some industries, this is dangerous. Consider the fast-paced world of cybersecurity, in which companies are offered traditional funding avenues as they promote their product's tech capabilities so people will invest.

As an artificial intelligence researcher, I often come across the idea that many people are afraid of what AI might bring. It's perhaps unsurprising, given both history and the entertainment industry, that we might be afraid of a cybernetic takeover that forces us to live locked away, Matrix-like, as some sort of human battery. And yet it is hard for me to look up from the evolutionary computer models I use to develop AI, to think about how the innocent virtual creatures on my screen might become the monsters of the future. Might I become "the destroyer of worlds," as Oppenheimer lamented after spearheading the construction of the first nuclear bomb? I would take the fame, I suppose, but perhaps the critics are right.

There has never been a better time to be a politician. But it's an even better time to be a machine learning engineer working for a politician. Throughout modern history, political candidates have had only a limited number of tools to take the temperature of the electorate. More often than not, they've had to rely on instinct rather than insight when running for office. Now big data can be used to maximise the effectiveness of a campaign.

There are over 800,000 drones registered in the United States. Of those, around 70 percent come from Chinese dronemaker DJI, whose Phantom series is essentially the Model-T of hobbyist UAVs. For the Pentagon, this poses two challenges: the ubiquity of the cheap crafts is a potential risk to base security, and also raises questions about the reliability on the drones themselves as a military tool. In response, the Pentagon announced that bases are authorized to use force to disable drones near bases, and also ordered troops to stop using drones from China's DJI. There are, at present, 320,000 registered non-drone aircraft in the United States, according to the FAA.

An unarmed Iranian drone buzzed an American Super Hornet fighter jet as it circled an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, Defense Department officials said on Tuesday. A statement released by the military's Central Command said that despite repeated radio calls demanding that Iran keep the drone clear of American flight operations in the vicinity of the aircraft carrier Nimitz, the Iranian vehicle came within 100 feet of the fighter jet, which had to swerve to avoid a collision. At the time of the incident, the jet had been in a holding pattern and was planning to land on the carrier, the statement said. "The dangerous maneuver created a collision hazard and is not in keeping with international maritime customs and laws," the statement said. The American military said this was the 13th "unsafe" or "unprofessional" interaction between American and Iranian maritime forces this year.

Tom Romeo is general manager of U.S. Federal Services at MAXIMUS. At a recent event, Chris Liddell, assistant to the president and director of strategic initiatives, spoke about the White House Office of American Innovation's focus on improving federal customer service, with the ultimate goal of providing citizens with "the same experience as they [receive] in the private sector." As noted by Liddell and other senior officials, modernizing the government's outdated legacy systems will be an important part of this process. But this effort can also include incorporating more AI and machine learning-driven technologies into the systems that directly handle an enormous amount of citizen requests: engagement and contact centers. Today, and in the near future, voice is expected to remain the most prominent channel for citizens to interact with the government.

I recently stumbled upon this interesting video (watch below) on Twitter about'Humanistic AI'. It was a Ted Talk by Tom Gruber, co-creator of'Siri' – Apple's intelligent mobile assistant. The premise of the talk is to understand what'Humanistic AI' is and how it can augment and collaborate with us, instead of competing with or even replacing us. This is a hot topic right now. Just last month, Elon Musk warned political leaders at a tech event in the US that "AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don't think people fully appreciate that…".

An Irish veterinarian's application for an Australian visa has been rejected after she failed to pass an automated English proficiency test, despite completing it in her native language of... English. Louise Kennedy, who has two degrees (both obtained in English), wanted to apply for permanent residency in the country on the grounds of her job, which is classed as a shortage profession. Despite acing the reading and writing parts of the test she didn't score highly enough on oral fluency, as it seems the machines couldn't understand her accent. The Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic is an automated system that asks applicants a number of questions and records their vocal responses which are analyzed and scored. The Australian government demands a score of at least 79 points.

The folks at Sony Education are worried that some schlubby kid that's gonna fail gym could hack their school and change their grade to a pass. It's why the company is teaming up with IBM to use blockchain to create a secure academic platform for storing records. The idea is that every scrap of data about your kids' schooling goes into a record that can then be stored securely. No kid, you gotta learn to climb that rope or else you can kiss that scholarship to Harvard goodbye. Sony wants to use its platform as a way for schools to create a huge central database of pupils in a given region.