The key takeaway from Tuesday's RobotLabNYC forum, on "Exploring The Autonomous Future," was humans are the key to robot adoption. Howard Morgan of First Round Capital expressed to the audience of more than 100 innovators working within the automation ecosystem, the necessity of embracing "entrepreneurial marketing" to reach customers. Tom Ryden echoed Morgan's sentiment in his presentation about Mass Robotics, conveying his startups' frustrations with the pace of adoption. Dr. Eric Daimler, formerly of the Obama Administration, concluded the evening succinctly by exclaiming, "we only adopt what we trust." Trust is key for crossing the chasm.

Like many artificial intelligence companies in Canada, PeopleAnalytics.ai was happy to see the federal government's launch of its Pan-Canadian Artificial lntelligence Strategy for research and talent as part of the federal budget this year. The $125-million that the Liberals are committing to the project, to be administered through the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research (CIFAR), is expected to help to attract and retain top academic talent in this country. With the market for AI-related ideas and products expected to reach $47-billion by 2020, according to CIFAR, the sector has already attracted major investment from Facebook and Google, among others. For PeopleAnalytics.ai, based out of Toronto's MaRS Discovery District, Canada is at a crossroads where it has the ability to define exactly how it wants to mould its focus on AI. Mark Chaikelson, below, vice-president of product for PeopleAnalytics.ai, says the success of the government's plan, particularly in the AI clusters in Montreal, Toronto-Waterloo and Edmonton, will come down to three things: capital, customers and talent.

Why this matters: Presidents have traditionally used the weight of the presidency -- in various ways public and private -- to push Congress to raise the ceiling. Some in Republican leadership circles are frustrated that the White House has no unified position on the debt ceiling strategy and appears willing to make GOP leadership do the thankless work. "This is the full faith and credit of the United States of America. It needs presidential leadership," said a source briefed on Short's recommendation. "It is not in a single member's best interest to vote for [a debt ceiling raise] and it has always taken the weight of the presidency behind it."

As artificial intelligence proliferates, companies and governments are aggregating enormous data sets to feed their AI initiatives. Although privacy is not a new concept in computing, the growth of aggregated data magnifies privacy challenges and leads to extreme ethical risks such as unintentionally building biased AI systems, among many others. Privacy and artificial intelligence are both complex topics. There are no easy or simple answers because solutions lie at the shifting and conflicted intersection of technology, commercial profit, public policy, and even individual and cultural attitudes. Given this complexity, I invited two brilliant people to share their thoughts in a CXOTALK conversation on privacy and AI.

A group of researchers from Tufts University, Brown University and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are collaborating with the US Navy in a multi-year effort to explore how they might create robots endowed with their own sense of morality. If they are successful, they will create an artificial intelligence able to autonomously assess a difficult situation and then make complex ethical decisions that can override the rigid instructions it was given. Seventy-two years ago, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov introduced "three laws of robotics" that could guide the moral compass of a highly advanced artificial intelligence. Sadly, given that today's most advanced AIs are still rather brittle and clueless about the world around them, one could argue that we are nowhere near building robots that are even able to understand these rules, let alone apply them. Upgrade to a Plus subscription today, and read the site without ads.

Today's guest is Sean Lane, CEO of CrossChx, and we have a great chat about artificial intelligence. President Trump met with Juan Manuel the President of Columbia yesterday and held a joint news conference. The President emphasized counter drug trafficking in partnership with Columbia. Other key points include the President's claims that illegal border crossings in the U.S. are down 73%, he wants the U.S. to work with South American countries on the Venezuelan problem, and also promised that MS-13 gang members will be gone from the U.S. soon. President Trump also took to Twitter today as he tweeted, "this is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" and "with all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel!" The tweets were in response to Wednesday's news that the Department of Justice appointment former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

AI is constantly touted as the next big thing. But how many of us are aware that AI is already here? While the jury is still out on whether it will be a benevolent force or an existential threat to humankind, AI is active in many facets of our daily lives and will play a larger role in the years to come. For example, the NSA has basically a version of "Skynet" from the Terminator series to track suspected terrorists and predict terrorist attacks (Minority Report, anyone?). And AI "hivemind" UNU correctly predicted the exact final score for this year's Super Bowl.

The Pentagon may soon unleash an army of robotic drones that are fast and smart enough to fly alongside fighter planes. Two classes of drone designed to act as airborne wingmen in aerial missions have been unveiled by a Pentagon-backed startup in the Silicon Valley. Though still in the testing phase, the drones could one day be used to protect human life by absorbing the first wave of an aerial attack. Pictured is an artistic impression of what the XQ-222 Valkyrie will look like. The Pentagon may soon unleash an army of robotic drones that are fast and smart enough to fly alongside fighter planes.

Tallinn, Estonia - Things are bad on the small island nation of Berylia after a diplomatic row with Crimsonia, its bigger neighbour and rival. There are street protests by the Crimsonian minority in Berylia, which then suffers a wave of cyber-attacks that make it lose control of its drones and its only international airbase. Crimsonia is blamed for the cyberoffensive even though there's no hard proof. Crippled by the attacks, Berylia, a new member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), weighs its options. One of them is to invoke Article 5 and take the military alliance to war against Crimsonia.

Uber has been rocked by a steady stream of scandals and negative publicity in recent years, including revelations of questionable spy programs, a high-stakes technology lawsuit, claims of sexual harassment and discrimination and embarrassing leaks about executive conduct. The PR disasters culminated in CEO Travis Kalanick taking an indefinite leave of absence this week and promises of bold reform that largely ignored the ride-hailing company's strained relationship with drivers. Here is a timeline of some of the most consequential controversies. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick faced backlash for a sexist joke about his increasing desirability, telling an Esquire reporter: "We call that Boob-er." Uber faced accusations that it booked thousands of fake rides from its competitor Lyft in an effort to cut into its profits and services.