Back in those now forgotten days of January, before The Great Inversion of 2016, Zuckerberg was surely kicking his heels when he set himself that "personal challenge" to build a simple AI, which he said would be like: "[l]ike Jarvis from Iron Man - to help run my home and help me with work." Since then, Zuckerberg's challenge has taken on a different, rather more pressing dimension, one which even the deliverance of his actual Jarvis couldn't distract us from: elevating Facebook from the mire of fake news. Whether Zuckerberg was first to the punch or simply the cipher for a trend, he succeed in putting the stamp of AI on 2016 - at least in enterprise circles - and 2016 broadly became the year when anything AI-related could generate headlines. But if your idea for December was for a piece of AI more sophisticated than a voice-activated version of Nest controlling all Zuck's domestic appliances - and not just his central heating - sorry. Like British supporters of the membership of the European Union and those Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton, the year didn't quite go your way.

The annual exercise of looking forward to all the exciting innovations the next year can reasonably be expected to bring is here once again. Last year at Telegraph tech we predicted 2016 would witness the rise of mobile payments, the creation of smart cities that can think and function autonomously, and the premiere of virtual reality in people's living rooms. Trials have proven artificial intelligence to be effective in suggesting treatments by analysing patients' genomes This year we've expanded our horizons somewhat to include moonshot projects, the social ramifications of technology and one disaster scenario. Here are our predictions of the technology events to come in 2017. Self-driving vehicles have arrived more swiftly than anybody thought: Google and Apple have been experimenting with the technology for years, the Autopilot mode on Tesla cars has clocked up over 200 million miles, and every carmaker is scrambling to get self-driving software into their vehicles.

Crime Prediction software analyzes existing patterns from police databases It uses the data to predict when and where an event is likely to occur next It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Minority Report-style crime prediction has edged closer to reality with a new AI software launched in Dubai. CCTV footage shows group of youths launch brutal assault on man POTUS and FLOTUS give their last holiday message from the White House Santa delivers! Little girl asks Santa for her daddy to come home Video shows Brooklyn lawyer who verbally attacked Ivanka on plane Male guests in a Chinese wedding flock to harass a bridesmaid Danish man crosses German border'dressed as ISIS soldier' Guests throw chairs as huge fight breaks out during wedding Man's amazing backflip saves child from out of control car Adorable baby gets incredibly excited about live motor racing MASSIVE Christmas brawl breaks out at New Jersey's Newport Mall Prince William & Duchess of Cambridge arrive at church service Danish man crosses German border'dressed as ISIS soldier' Man's amazing backflip saves child from out of control car Fans of Ivanka Trump flood Clinton supporter's Amazon book... Italian TV presenter gives viewers a real news flash when... Zara and Mike Tindall reveal they have lost their unborn... Baby starves to death in home days after her parents died... Stupid or dangerous?

In some ways, tech in 2017 will be a steady progression from what came before it. Time marches on, and so too does the advance of technology. In other ways, though, it will be just as upended as the rest of the world by the unprecedented disruption that 2016 has left in its wake. The artificial intelligence revolution is well and truly upon us, but so far, the biggest players are venerable Silicon Valley titans such as Google, Amazon and Apple. That's partially because they have the money to hire teams full of PhDs at seven-figure salaries, but it's also because they have the data.

Advanced analytics and other emerging technologies are revolutionizing the way governments and public service agencies are trying to address citizen demands, helping to overcome persistent challenges such as regulatory compliance, outdated legacy IT infrastructures and organizational cultures, according to a new research report from Accenture. The report, Emerging Technologies in Public Service, examines the adoption of emerging technologies across agencies with the most direct interaction with citizens or the greatest responsibility for citizen-facing services: health and social services, policing/justice, revenue, border services, pension / social security and administration. As part of the report, Accenture surveyed nearly 800 public service technology professionals across nine countries to identify emerging technologies being implemented or piloted. These technologies include advanced analytics/ predictive modeling, the Internet of Things, intelligent process automation, video analytics, biometrics/ identity analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing/ generation. The survey found that while more than two-thirds (70 percent) of public sector agencies are evaluating the potential of emerging technologies, only a small percentage (25 percent) is moving beyond the pilot phase to full implementation.

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That "galaxy, far, far away" in the famed opening lines of "Star Wars" flicks actually is part of "our reality," according to a commentary released on a key site, KurzweilAI, that deals with artificial intelligence and the like. It's because the newest chapter of the long-running series, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," has a robot as a key character. The robot previously was part of the "Imperial Empire" but was captured and reprogrammed to become part of the rebel group that sets out to steal plans for the "Death Star" and uncover a fatal flaw. Jonathan Roberts, a professor of robotics at Queensland University of Technology, warns that robotic technology used in military conflicts could be turned back against those who created and released it. "Without giving away too many spoilers, K-2SO is part of the Rebellion freedom fighter group that are tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star, the infamous moon-sized battle station from the original Star Wars movie," he said. "Some robotics engineers and researchers are working on exactly this and have started to develop the algorithms that will enable autonomous military robots to be ethical.

Crime Prediction software analyzes existing patterns from police databases It uses the data to predict when and where an event is likely to occur next It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Minority Report-style crime prediction has edged closer to reality with a new AI software launched in Dubai. CCTV footage shows group of youths launch brutal assault on man Male guests in a Chinese wedding flock to harass a bridesmaid Guests throw chairs as huge fight breaks out during wedding Man's amazing backflip saves child from out of control car Santa delivers! Little girl asks Santa for her daddy to come home Fearless free solo climber passes rock climbers at speed Video shows Brooklyn lawyer who verbally attacked Ivanka on plane POTUS and FLOTUS give their last holiday message from the White House Girl walks around London with no jeans - can the public tell?

Last week I went to the workshops at NIPS (biggest ML conference in the world) and I also attended part of the ML and the Law symposium the day before. I found out a little bit too late about the symposia but I was still able to attend two panels on which there were both lawyers and computer scientists. They were very insightful and informative -- did you know that this Spring, the European Union passed a regulation giving its citizens a "right to an explanation" for decisions made by machine-learning systems? The panel discussions were motivated by the problem of explaining ML-powered decisions which have an important impact on people's lives: We need to be able to test how systems get to their conclusions; if we can't test, we can't contest. Individuals are entitled to know which data is being processed of them, and to explanations of how predictions & decisions work, in terms they can understand.

'Never,' Defense Secretary Carter Says « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary IN FLIGHT TO ANDREWS AFB: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is pushing hard for artificial intelligence -- but the US military will "never" unleash truly autonomous killing machines, he pledged today. "In many cases, and certainly whenever it comes to the application of force, there will never be true... IN FLIGHT TO ANDREWS AFB: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is pushing hard for artificial intelligence -- but the US military will "never" unleash truly autonomous killing machines, he pledged today. "In many cases, and certainly whenever it comes to the application of force, there will never be true...