Over the past few years we've developed artificially intelligent machines that can do many things that used to require human minds: understanding speech, diagnosing disease, checking the terms of a contract, designing a mechanical part from scratch, even coming up with new scientific hypotheses that are supported by subsequent research. As this new software is embedded in hardware we'll get self-driving cars, trucks, and combines; delivery and inspection drones; and robots of many kinds. These technologies are improving more quickly than even their creators would have predicted at the start of the decade, and the fact that the world's best players of both the Asian strategy game go and no limit heads up Texas hold-em poker are now AI systems indicates just how deeply they're encroaching into human territory. So shouldn't we be preparing ourselves for massive AI-induced technological unemployment? A widely cited 2015 analysis by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University found that 47% of current jobs in the US were susceptible to computerization.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has resigned from the ride-sharing service he co-founded, another twist in a rough year for the company. Uber has faced scandals on multiple fronts. The company launched two investigations into allegations of harassment. Kalanick, who took an indefinite leave of absence last week, was at the center of controversy over a profanity-laced outburst with an Uber driver that was caught on video. There's also a court battle stemming from allegations that Uber stole trade secrets from Waymo, Alphabet's (GOOGL) self-driving car development company.

Regular readers of Futurism probably understand, by now, what it means when the word "smart" is affixed to any common piece of technology -- it means a serious upgrade, most likely with internet connectivity, the ability to process huge amounts of data, and probably even an artificial intelligence (AI) program of some kind. For example, a telephone lets you communicate with someone across great distances. A smartphone, on the other hand, lets you plug into the world's nervous system. One is a useful tool. The other is an indispensable facet of modern life.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and an increasingly connected society has already, according to the UK's MI5 made it "much harder for spies to hide in the shadows", but now, if Robert Cardillo has his way, so called robo-automation tools will perform 75 percent of the tasks currently done by the new front line of American intelligence spies – the analysts who collect, analyse, and interpret images beamed from drones, satellites, and other feeds around the globe. Cardillo, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, (NGA), announced his push toward "automation" and "AI" at a conference this week in San Antonio. The annual conference, hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, brings together technologists, soldiers, and intelligence professionals to discuss national security threats, changes in technology, and data collection and processing. AI is on the rise, and last year former President Barack Obama's White House created a Defcon Scale for Cyberattacks, and released a white paper on its potential future impacts in the final months of the administration, and police forces around the world are increasingly using preliminary "pre-crime" technologies to predict when, where and by whom crimes will likely be committed. And all of that is in addition to the likes of companies like Amazon and Netflix who are using machine learning to calculate what movie you will want to watch or which book you may buy.

Listen in to this special episode of Charged Up!, taken from a live Facebook broadcast with Jason Schenker, who Bloomberg ranks as the world's foremost financial futurist. In this episode, we talk about Schenker's predictions, laid out in his 2017 book "Jobs for Robots: Between Robocalypse and Robotopia," and how the robot revolution will affect our jobs, our pay and our career prospects. Schenker talks about three industry sectors that are safest from being taken over by technology, what students should study if they're entering school now and what kind of skills will protect you from losing out to robots. So, get Charged Up! about learning how to survive the robot revolution! Jason Schenker: Thank you very much, Jenny. It's a real pleasure to be here. Hoff: So, we're going to talk today about your book, "Jobs for Robots" and this is a live broadcast on Facebook so we're also going to be taking questions from our listeners which I will then later translate for the podcast so we make sure that everybody can hear the questions. But first I want to talk a little bit about how did you get into being a futurist and then where did the interest in robots come from? Schenker: Sure, the most important thing is as a futurist there's three components to it: You're part historian because you need the historical perspective of where we've been.

IBM is working with the U.S. Air Force to improve its TrueNorth line of chips designed to optimize the performance of machine learning models at the hardware level. The new 64-chip array will consist of four boards, each with 16 chips. IBM's chips are still too experimental to be used in mass production, but they've shown promise in running a special type of neural network called a spiking neural network. Though the technology is still in its infancy, IBM believes the low power consumption of its chips could some day bring value in constrained applications like mobile phones and self-driving cars. In an Air Force context, this could include applications in satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

If we sum up all the available numbers for AI research investments (including other government funding like the $93.5M awarded to IVADO by the Canada Research Excellence Fund last September, as well as private funds invested in public or semi-public labs) we end up with close to $500M in funding across the country. Beyond that, when we look up other domains that work hand in hand with AI, such as Big Data, cloud infrastructure and the like, that number grows even higher. What made Silicon Valley's talent pump work up to now was its ecosystem of large firms and venture capital feeding startups, as well as research who in turn generate the innovations to push the large firms forward. With investments from the federal and provincial governments in research, as well as from Big Tech, the Canadian talent pump is growing quickly.

I've been putting together a map on Canada's AI ecosystem, which I first revealed last week in my keynote on C2 Montreal's main stage. As promised, I'm publishing that map at the bottom of this post. Given the speed at which the industry is progressing, this map is constantly evolving, so I'll be sharing updates as we add them. If you have an addition to make, drop me a line! UPDATE June 13, 2017: Last week I posted V1 of my Map of the Canadian AI Ecosystem, and since then I've been inundated with additions.

Are Detroit and the Silicon Valley the hotbeds for driverless car development? Not necessarily, says Brent Snavely of the Detroit Free Press. Last year, Goldman Sachs projected the market for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles would grow from about $3 billion in 2015 to $96 billion in 2025 and $290 billion in 2035. In some cities, automakers, suppliers and technology companies are clustering to test their self-driving vehicles. In others, governors and mayors are beckoning the industry by changing laws or touting other inducements.

Self-driving cars are only starting to navigate the nation's streets, but regulators are scrambling to catch up. In the race to deliver cars that can safely operate themselves, proponents are increasingly concerned about a fast-growing thicket of regulations and laws being proposed by states that could come in conflict with each other and threaten to hold up development. "It could be messier, and it could take longer than we want it to," IHS Automotive analyst Stephanie Brinley says. "We will see some state-by-state and some federal fights happening." Some believe the federal government must step in to create a national standard pertaining to testing, crash liability and design requirements.