DRONE warfare, once the sole pursuit of the US military, is being democratised. Islamic State (ISIS) has deployed consumer drones carrying grenades in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, creating the most daunting problem US Special Operations Command troops faced in Iraq during 2016, according to their commander Raymond Thomas. Groups around the world are taking advantage of the increasing accessibility of drone technology to build and deploy them as weapons (see "Home-grown drones"). And it's not hard to imagine them being used in an attack in the West; the bomber responsible for the May attack on a concert Leader: "Drone blowback: High-tech weapons come home to roost"

The RAF may drop bombs on people launching cyber attacks that hit Britain, according to the defence secretary. Speaking after a huge attack on the parliamentary network – but soon before the Petya attack spread across the world, including to the UK – Michael Fallon said that the country could launch responses to online attacks "from any domain - air, land, sea or cyber". The comments have already attracted some criticism because it is usually almost impossible to say with certainty who carried out a hack. Experts may sometimes identify the country or state that appears to be behind any given cyber attack – but even that identification can be intentionally spoofed by hackers. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Security experts have found a'vaccine' for the ransomware that has been causing chaos around the world. It was initially thought to be a variant of known malware Petya, but is now claimed to be a completely new infection, which Kaspersky has dubbed'NotPetya'. However, it's still widely being referred to as'Petya', as well as'Petna' and even'SortaPetya'. It has affected a number of large organisations around the world, including WPP in the UK. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

The computer virus that spread rapidly across the world is still making its way to more companies and countries – but is gradually slowing down. The software doesn't appear to be vulnerable to the same "kill switch" that stopped the similar Wannacry virus just weeks ago, however, and so is likely to continue to travel around the world. The attack appeared to have started in Ukraine and then made its way across Europe, hitting companies including the world's biggest advertising company in Britain and Danish international Maersk. It then continued to spread, arriving in the US and then in Asia. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

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Or is it a remotely operated quadrotor conducting surveillance or preparing to drop a deadly payload? Human observers won't have to guess--or keep their eyes glued to computer monitors--now that there's superhuman artificial intelligence capable of distinguishing drones from those other flying objects. Automated watchfulness, thanks to machine learning, has given police and other agencies tasked with maintaining security an important countermeasure to help them keep pace with swarms of new drones taking to the skies. The security challenge has only grown over the past few years: Millions of people have bought consumer drones and sometimes flown them into off limits areas where they pose a hazard to crowds on the ground or larger aircraft in the sky. Off-the-shelf drones have also become affordable and dangerous weapons for the Islamic State and other militant groups in war-torn regions such as Iraq and Syria.

Malware and cyber attacks have been something that we have been dealing with for decades, and it seems that the more sophisticated our technology gets, the more sophisticated the attacks get as well. In a post on Microsoft's blog (via Engadget), the company has revealed that with the upcoming Windows Fall Creators Update, they will be introducing AI to their Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) system, which should in theory be better and more efficient at protecting users from attacks. That being said, since ATP is currently a feature only available for enterprise users, only enterprise users will be receiving this feature first. Read more about ai, malware, Microsoft, Security, Windows and Windows 10.

Alphabet Inc.'s most successful product -- the Google search engine -- may now be its most problematic. On Tuesday, the European Commission's top antitrust regulator levied a $2.7-billion fine against Alphabet and Google for the way the search engine handles requests for information about products. Specifically, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that Google skewed its results to bury links to rival companies' comparison shopping sites while prominently featuring its own service, Google Shopping. Google responded that it's simply trying to give users what they want and denied "favoring ourselves, or any particular site or seller." It has a lot at stake: Google has integrated many different offerings into its search engine, including its mapping and travel services.

In the first part of my blog, I looked in more detail at the question of how "human" the so-called artificial intelligence (AI) is, and that creativity is not a distinguishing feature to us humans, since machines have already become quite creative themselves. But it is difficult to say whether it is a good or bad for computers to be creative – and, thus, to be somehow human. Perhaps a comparison involving human beings can help. When do we trust a person? When we are familiar with his/her views and values, and we've found him/her to be reliable.

Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the "singularity" -- that point in history when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs. These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if ever.