AI's next frontier requires ethics built through policy. With one foot in its science fiction past and the other in the new frontier of science and tech innovations, AI occupies a unique place in our cultural imagination. Will we live into a future where machines are as intelligent -- or frighteningly, more so -- than humans? We have already witnessed AI predict the outcome of the latest U.S. presidential election when many policy wonks failed. In October, then-President Obama hosted the White House Frontiers Conference, which focused on the leading global technologies featured in the November issue of WIRED, which was guest edited by Obama.

As business, policy, and technology leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this year, the rise of populism with Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US drove discussions about the pros and cons of globalization. While globalization has improved the living conditions of vast swaths of this planet's population, it has also led to shifting employment patterns, as jobs leave the US for China and other low-wage countries. However, the Davos cognoscenti believe wage inequality is only part of the problem. Hand-in-hand with globalization is the topic of automation – seen as more of a culprit for increasing inequality than the usual scapegoat, low-cost labor. "[Automation] particularly represents a challenge for people in our economy with low skills, particularly the older workers who don't feel able to embrace and learn new skills and new technologies," says Philip Hammond, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, according to an article in the Washington Post.

Cancer is a devastating disease and statistics now suggest that nearly one in every two people worldwide will develop cancer at some point in their lives. Although there are various treatments available that are improving all the time, there is still no cure for cancer. Research in developing effective cancer treatments has been going on for decades, and now researchers are turning to the help of AI in hopes of finding a cure for the disease. But one thing that is needed for searching for a cure for cancer, even when using AI, is data. The problem with this is that a lot of data including mammograms, genetic tests, and medical records are still under lock and key and not available to those who can make use of it. However, on the flip side, there are now a number of large scale initiatives in place that are willing to share data and make it easy to do so.

Why is it that every time humans develop a really clever computer system in the movies, it seems intent on killing every last one of us at its first opportunity? In Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 starts off as an attentive, if somewhat creepy, custodian of the astronauts aboard the USS Discovery One, before famously turning homicidal and trying to kill them all. In The Matrix, humanity's invention of AI promptly results in human-machine warfare, leading to humans enslaved as a biological source of energy by the machines. In Daniel H. Wilson's book Robopocalypse, computer scientists finally crack the code on the AI problem, only to have their creation develop a sudden and deep dislike for its creators. Is Siri just a few upgrades away from killing you in your sleep? And you're not an especially sentient being yourself if you haven't heard the story of Skynet (see The Terminator, T2, T3, etc.) The simple answer is that -- movies like Wall-E, Short Circuit, and Chappie, notwithstanding -- Hollywood knows that nothing guarantees box office gold quite like an existential threat to all of humanity. Whether that threat is likely in real life or not is decidedly beside the point. How else can one explain the endless march of zombie flicks, not to mention those pesky, shark-infested tornadoes? The reality of AI is nothing like the movies. Siri, Alexa, Watson, Cortana -- these are our HAL 9000s, and none seems even vaguely murderous. The technology has taken leaps and bounds in the last decade, and seems poised to finally match the vision our artists have depicted in film for decades. Is Siri just a few upgrades away from killing you in your sleep, or is Hollywood running away with a tired idea? Looking back at the last decade of AI research helps to paint a clearer picture of a sometimes frightening, sometimes enlightened future. An increasing number of prominent voices are being raised about the real dangers of humanity's continuing work on so-called artificial intelligence.

NEW DELHI: In the darkened offices of a tech start-up, a handful of computer engineers sifts through a mountain of intelligence data that would normally be the work of a small army of Indian security agents. "We use artificial intelligence (AI) to look for patterns in the past to predict future behaviour," says Tarun Wig as he explains why he hopes his company Innefu can do more business with India's government. We lost out on the industrial revolution, we lost out on the defence revolution – let's not lose out in the cyber revolution." While other countries have long relied on AI to gather intelligence, India – sometimes seemingly addicted to paperwork – has continued to use agents to eyeball reams of data gathered over the years. It's a process that sucks up time and can often miss crucial information.

In the darkened offices of a tech start-up, a handful of computer engineers sifts through a mountain of intelligence data that would normally be the work of a small army of Indian security agents. "We use artificial intelligence (AI) to look for patterns in the past to predict future behaviour," says Tarun Wig as he explains why he hopes his company Innefu can do more business with India's government. We lost out on the industrial revolution, we lost out on the defence revolution -- let's not lose out in the cyber revolution." While other countries have long relied on AI to gather intelligence, India -- sometimes seemingly addicted to paperwork -- has continued to use agents to eyeball reams of data gathered over the years. It's a process that sucks up time and can often miss crucial information.

U.S. drone strikes against suspected al-Qaida targets have been commonplace in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, as a retaliatory measure against the group. The use of unmanned aircraft as well as air strikes in the Arab world's poorest country rose dramatically under President Barack Obama, with data from the Britain-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism showing spikes in attacks, especially in 2012 and 2016.

Despite spending more money on security than ever, organisations struggling with a widespread cybersecurity skills gap are often told how technologies like big data, analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence can aid them in protecting their data or critical infrastructure from attackers. Organisations ranging from startups to established large corporations are investing in the building of AI systems to bolster defences by analysing vast amounts of data and helping cybersecurity professionals identify far more threats than would be possible if they were left to do it manually. But the same technologies that improve corporate defences could also be used to attack them. It's the simplest method of cyberattack available -- and there are schemes on the dark web which put all the tools required to go phishing into anyone's hands. It's simply a case of taking an email address, scraping some publicly available personal data to make the phishing email seem convincing, then sending it to the victim and waiting for them to bite.

SANAA, Yemen – Yemeni security and tribal officials say suspected U.S. drone strikes have killed three alleged al-Qaida operatives in the country's southwestern Bayda province. They say the two Saturday strikes killed Abu Anis al-Abi, an area field commander, and two others. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information. U.S. drone strikes against suspected al-Qaida targets have been commonplace in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington as a retaliatory measure. Saturday's strikes were the first to be reported since Donald Trump assumed office as Barack Obama's successor.

The Tesla Model S is an extraordinary machine. As part of my research into the regulation of self-driving cars, I've had the privilege of driving one. Or more accurately, I've had the privilege of being driven by one. On a Colorado highway in July, with some trepidation, I flicked the lever to engage Autopilot mode. I told the representative from Tesla that I was worried about handing over control, taking my feet off the pedals and my hands off the wheel.