Sir Richard Lambert told an audience at Warwick Business School that companies need to take responsibility for the consequences of the rise of the robots. Speaking in the first of the WBS 50th Anniversary Distinguished Lectures held at WBS London at The Shard, Sir Richard outlined the threat to society of the increasing use of automation through machine learning, artificial intelligence and robots. The Bank of England's chief economist Andy Haldane has warned that 15 million jobs in the UK are under threat from mass automation, almost half those employed in the country. The possible destruction of so many jobs has led a number of academics, economists and prominent CEOs, like Tesla's Elon Musk, to predict that governments will have to hand out a universal basic income to citizens. Sir Richard, who was Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) from 2006 to 2011, believes CEOs must make sure their companies shoulder their share of responsibility, either voluntarily or by force of regulation.

Looks like even Google's voice-activated speaker Google Home is not safe from fake news. It was found out recently that Amazon Echo's rival is vulnerable to hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation published online. Apparently, when SearchEngineLand editor Danny Sullivan discovered that Google serves up fake news as answers to questions asked by users on Google's search bar, it led to the discovery that Google Home could also respond to user queries with data from fake news sites. Re/code says the reason why Google Home also uses bogus search results to answer to inquiries is due to Featured Snippets, a feature of Google Search that generates algorithmic matches to search queries from third-party sites. A Google spokesperson has since confirmed the problem with Featured Snippets in an email to Re/code.

WikiLeaks has published a huge trove of what appear to be CIA spying secrets. The files are the most comprehensive release of US spying files ever made public, according to Julian Assange. In all, there are 8,761 documents that account for "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA", Mr Assange claimed in a release, and the trove is just the first of a series of "Vault 7" leaks. Already, the files include far more pages than the Snowden files that exposed the vast hacking power of the NSA and other agencies. In publishing the documents, WikiLeaks had ensured that the CIA had "lost control of its arsenal", he claimed.

Google has vowed to fix a glitch with its new AI voice assistant after the device was caught reading out fake news. The Google Home device, which is currently available in the US but not in the UK, has been filmed making wild claims about political figures including Barack Obama. The voice-activated home device read out fake news from Google that claimed Barack Obama is planning a'coup d'etat' and that four former US presidents were members of the Ku Klux Klan. Google Home (pictured) will go on sale in the UK by the end of June of this year. Google Home is an artificially intelligent speaker that responds to voice commands.

Although artificial intelligence (as a set of technologies, not in the sense of mimicking human intelligence) is here since a long time in many forms and ways, it's a term that quite some people, certainly IT vendors, don't like to use that much anymore – but artificial intelligence is real, for your business too. Instead of talking about artificial intelligence (AI) many describe the current wave of AI innovation and acceleration with – admittedly somewhat differently positioned – terms and concepts such as cognitive computing or focus on several real-life applications of artificial intelligence that often start with words such as "smart" (omni-present in anything Internet of Things as well), "intelligent", "predictive" and, indeed, "cognitive", depending on the exact application – and vendor. Despite the term issues, artificial intelligence is essential for and in, among others, information management, medicine/healthcare, data analysis, digital transformation, security (cybersecurity and others), various consumer applications, scientific advances, FinTech, predictive systems and so much more. There are many reasons why several vendors doubt using the term artificial intelligence for AI solutions/innovations and often package them in another term (trust us, we've been there). Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term that has somewhat of a negative connotation in general perception but also in the perception of technology leaders and firms. One major issue is that artificial intelligence – which is really a broad concept/reality, covering many technologies and realities – has become like a thing we talk about and also seem to need to have an opinion/feeling about, with thanks to, among others, popular culture.

WikiLeaks is about to release a huge, mysterious trove of documents, according to Julian Assange. The organisation's official Twitter, which is thought to be run by its leader, posted a link to a trove of documents early in the morning. It promised that the password to unlock them would be revealed later on, at 9am eastern time. The post didn't make any explicit reference to what was contained in the document, making reference only to mysterious phrases like "Year Zero" and "Vault 7". But the post included a hidden picture that appeared to make reference to a secret CIA code.

A global survey of 4000 consumers reveals that shoppers are being left disappointed with the freshness of their grocery purchases. Set against a backdrop of declining retail profitability and significant changes in consumer lifestyles, grocery retailers are under pressure to deliver the best freshness to their customers, while also turning a profit. McKinsey reports that 40 per cent of grocery revenue is driven by fresh, which puts tremendous pressure on category managers to get it right. Yet category managers in fresh know too well the complexities of delivering the best fresh to their customers: Fresh goods are perishable, demand varies from day to day and supply chain lead-times are difficult to predict. Stock too much and you risk providing a less than satisfactory level of fresh if the stock is not sold in time, or you generate food waste.

The Chinese government, who recently announced they want to build AI based cruise missiles and a new nationwide Social Credit Scoring system, has approved a plan to create a next generation artificial intelligence (AI) national laboratory network which is expected to help China close the gap with its Western counterparts, many of whom now seem to be driving at full speed towards a world where artificial intelligence is the norm, not the exception. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) approved plans for a national engineering lab to support the research and development of deep learning technologies last week, but in a twist the lab will be online only, and won't have a physical presence. The NDRC commissioned Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, to create the lab in collaboration with Tsinghua University and Peking University, as well as the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, and the China Electronics Standardization Institute. The project will be led by Baidu's deep learning institute chief Lin Yuanqing and scientist Xu Wei, along with academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhang Bo and Li Wei. Baidu, who by all accounts are rapidly becoming the Google of China, certainly with respect to AI, will also provide the deep learning computing, algorithms and big data for the project. The lab will focus on seven different areas of the field: deep learning, computer vision and sensing, computer listening, biometric identification, new forms of human-computer interaction, standardized services, and deep learning intellectual property rights.

Artificial intelligence experts point to looming danger amid unpredictable technology and fears that technology could'seduce us into warfare' Experts in artificial intelligence, lawyers and activists organized by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday to warn against a growing reliance on cheap drones and "stupid AI" that can be unpredictable in the real world. "Terminator always comes up," Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the sci-fi cyborg on a mission to wipe out mankind. "But it's not really Terminator that we're worried about at the moment. I think that Terminator is perhaps 50 or so years away." But there are concerning technologies "only a few years, at best, away", Walsh said, and with semi-autonomous systems, such as drones, "it would take very little to remove the human from that loop and replace them with a computer".

Imaging and understanding the brain is getting so good we are on the cusp of truly enhancing it. This article originally appeared on SOSV.) As I start to look at the emerging trends of 2017 from the vantage of IndieBio, where we see hundreds of biotech startup applications and technologies per year, a few key themes are already emerging. Even as political landscapes change, science and technology continue to push forward. Most of us have seen science fiction shows that show future doctors regrowing and replacing entire organs.