A U.N. panel agreed Friday to move ahead with talks to define and possibly set limits on weapons that can kill without human involvement, as human rights groups said governments are moving too slowly to keep up with advances in artificial intelligence that could put computers in control one day. Advocacy groups warned about the threats posed by such'killer robots' and aired a chilling video illustrating their possible uses on the sidelines of the first formal U.N. meeting of government experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems this week. More than 80 countries took part. The meeting falls under the U.N.'s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons - also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention - a 37-year old agreement that has set limits on the use of arms and explosives like mines, blinding laser weapons and booby traps over the years. The meeting falls under the U.N.'s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons - also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention - a 37-year old agreement that has set limits on the use of arms and explosives like mines, blinding laser weapons and booby traps over the years.

The Libyan National Army has been battling ISIS in the cities of Sirte and Benghazi. The U.S. military has launched airstrikes this month in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Friday, for the first time since September, in Libya. According to a defense official, the drone strike in the desert of central Libya Friday killed "several" ISIS militants in a sign the Pentagon may be ramping up pressure on terror groups in Africa. The most recent strike comes a year after the military launched nearly 500 airstrikes against ISIS in the coastal city of Sirte, located halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi. The September strike killed 17 ISIS fighters.

MIT's Atlas robot, nicknamed Helios, completes the driving task at the June 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals. Helios is a second-generation Atlas, developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics. MIT's Atlas robot, nicknamed Helios, completes the driving task at the June 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals. Helios is a second-generation Atlas, developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics. Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017 was a day filled with news. So much news, in fact, that you might have missed the announcement of a back-flipping robot.

A U.N. panel agreed Friday to move ahead with talks to define and possibly set limits on weapons that can kill without human involvement, as human rights groups said governments are moving too slowly to keep up with advances in artificial intelligence that could put computers in control one day.

What will happen to a person's artificial intelligence (AI) when they retire? When a prospective employee interviews for a job, will his or her AI be questioned alongside them? Will companies hire AI straight from a factory, or will the system undergo a sort of apprenticeship before being put to work? More importantly--and more realistic in the near-term--what will be the line at which machines are not reliable enough or morally appropriate to use and humans take over? These, along with many more immediate questions, are among the topics USGIF's Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Working Group seeks to generate discussion around.

Artificial intelligence is quickly advancing. In 1964 the first major AI, ELIZA, was built, and it could only hold a conversation from a script. Now, AIs like Apple's Siri, Windows' Cortana and Amazon's Alexa can interpret human dialogue to an amazing degree, and fulfill commands. It is benign now, but AI is something with which society needs to be cautious. AI has the possibility of creating a human society so advanced we cannot even imagine it, but it also has the capability of upheaving our societal system and upheaving us with it.

Watch SpaceX launch its Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center with a Korean communications satellite and land the first stage on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the U.S. government's secret Zuma mission stands vertical on Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A. The rocket launch was delayed Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017. CAPE CANAVERAL -- Could a secret U.S. government spacecraft be bound for a rendezvous with a spy satellite or even the International Space Station? Little is known about the mission called Zuma, targeting a launch as early as 8 p.m. Friday, the opening of a two-hour window, from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The Government of Karnataka has launched a Centre of Excellence for data science and Artificial Intelligence (CoE-DS&AI) in collaboration with NASSCOM. To be established with around Rs 40 crore, the CoE will be its first-of-its-kind port based on a public-private partnership model, and will accelerate the ecosystem in Karnataka by providing the impetus for the development of data science and artificial intelligence across the country. NASSCOM will work towards accelerating innovation, enabling industry-oriented research, promoting adoption of data-driven decision making by enterprises and enabling appropriate skills & talent development. The Centre of Excellence will provide high-end technology capabilities, data, expertise, thought leadership, and curated programs to augment capabilities across academia, enterprises, government, and innovators or advanced start-ups. Priyank Kharge, Minister for IT, BT & Tourism, Government of Karnataka, said, "Karnataka has led the IT revolution in India and has always been at the forefront in areas of science and information technology. Our Government has played the key role for Karnataka to be known as the start-up capital in the country through NASSCOM by establishing India's first start-up warehouse. This Centre of Excellence for Data Science & Artificial Intelligence will be a catalyst for the growth of data science and artificial intelligence, and provide a head-start to, not just the state, but India as a destination to develop global products and solutions."

Stanford researchers have developed an algorithm that offers diagnoses based off chest X-ray images. A paper about the algorithm, called CheXNet, was published Nov. 14 on the open-access, scientific preprint website arXiv. "Interpreting X-ray images to diagnose pathologies like pneumonia is very challenging, and we know that there's a lot of variability in the diagnoses radiologists arrive at," said Pranav Rajpurkar, a graduate student in the Machine Learning Group at Stanford and co-lead author of the paper. "We became interested in developing machine learning algorithms that could learn from hundreds of thousands of chest X-ray diagnoses and make accurate diagnoses." The work uses a public data set initially released by the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center on Sept. 26. That data set contains 112,120 frontal-view chest X-ray images labeled with up to 14 possible pathologies.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly looking into ways to use machine learning technology and social media monitoring to identify people for visa denial–and to select people for deportation from the United States. After IBM attended the informational meeting, rights groups are concerned that the company might be considering getting involved with the program. While Reuters obtained an email from Christopher Padilla, IBM's vice president of government affairs, saying that IBM "would not work on any project that runs counter to our company's values, including our long-standing opposition to discrimination against anyone on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion," he also noted that it was "premature to speculate" whether IBM would pursue this business. To hopefully sway IBM from getting in bed with ICE, a coalition of rights groups, including 18 Million Rising and Center for Media Justice launched an online petition on Thursday urging IBM Corp to renounce the proposal entirely. If you sign it, you won't be alone.