Aerodynamics and physics dictate that you can't quite strap an assault rifle onto a DJI Phantom and expect it to fly and hit a target. Florida company Duke Robotics has apparently devised a way to keep a drone steady while compensating for a gun's recoil. "Though a system of flexibly connected pates, the TIKAD distributes the backward momentum in a way that keeps the vehicle stationary in the air," Defense One writes. "A ten-pound robot gimbal allows six degrees of movement freedom and the ability to rapidly re-target the weapon and camera." Supposedly the system can keep a UAV steady whether it has a grenade launcher for a payload, or a pistol -- so long as the weapon is under 22 pounds.

Image technologies that will reduce drudgery, help to cure disease, make transportation cheaper and safer, and make energy more efficient. Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies are making all of that possible and more. But a world of benefit will come at a steep price. There will be waves of job loss (different by sector and geography) and growing income inequality. To understand the opportunities and challenges, we are co-hosting community conversations about the implications of AI. We think it's a good time for our #AskAboutAI series.

Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series on AI. PDF: We made a fancy PDF of this post for printing and offline viewing. We have what may be an extremely difficult problem with an unknown time to solve it, on which quite possibly the entire future of humanity depends. Welcome to Part 2 of the "Wait how is this possibly what I'm reading I don't get why everyone isn't talking about this" series. Part 1 started innocently enough, as we discussed Artificial Narrow Intelligence, or ANI (AI that specializes in one narrow task like coming up with driving routes or playing chess), and how it's all around us in the world today. We then examined why it was such a huge challenge to get from ANI to Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI (AI that's at least as intellectually capable as a human, across the board), and we discussed why the exponential rate of technological advancement we've seen in the past suggests that AGI might not be as far away as it seems. This left us staring at the screen, ...

Support for the development and promotion of Artificial Intelligence is born from the deepest roots of state power in China that defined, for the new qualitative leap of that society, Innovation as its axis and Science and Technology as its sustenance. Li Keqiang, the Prime Minister, summed it up by stating that "science and technology change the world, innovation forms the future". The AI is expressly included. Xi Jinping, the President of China, described it this way: "We need to build an innovative world economy to generate new drivers of growth. Innovation holds the key to fundamentally unleashing the growth potential. The new round of scientific and industrial revolution with Internet at its core is gathering momentum, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality are developing by leaps and bounds. The combination of the virtual economy and the real economy will bring revolutionary changes to our way of work and way of life".

The US embassy in The Gambia has reversed its decision and granted visas for a high school robotics team to compete in an international competition in the United States. On Monday, it was reported that the team, made up of five teenagers, were denied visas to attend the FIRST Global robotics event in Washington DC on July 16-18. However, in a second interview with the US embassy, all five students were given visas. Fatoumata Ceesay, one of the engineering students, told Al Jazeera that although she and her peers weren't told the reason behind the decision's reversal, the second interview differed a lot from the first one. "It was very nice and sensible compared to the last one," the 17-year-old Ceesay said.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Scientific American's sister publication, as "Digitale Demokratie statt Datendiktatur." "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another." The digital revolution is in full swing. How will it change our world? The amount of data we produce doubles every year. In other words: in 2016 we produced as much data as in the entire history of humankind through 2015. Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel. Soon, the things around us, possibly even our clothing, also will be connected with the Internet. It is estimated that in 10 years' time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money. Everything will become intelligent; soon we will not only have smart phones, but also smart homes, smart factories and smart cities. Should we also expect these developments to result in smart nations and a smarter planet? The field of artificial intelligence is, indeed, making breathtaking advances. In particular, it is contributing to the automation of data analysis. Artificial intelligence is no longer programmed line by line, but is now capable of learning, thereby continuously developing itself. Recently, Google's DeepMind algorithm taught itself how to win 49 Atari games. Algorithms can now recognize handwritten language and patterns almost as well as humans and even complete some tasks better than them. They are able to describe the contents of photos and videos. Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms. News content is, in part, automatically generated. This all has radical economic consequences: in the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today's jobs will be threatened by algorithms. It can be expected that supercomputers will soon surpass human capabilities in almost all areas--somewhere between 2020 and 2060. Experts are starting to ring alarm bells.

Over the past few months, industry and government have pledged more than $500-million toward AI, a commitment that has led to the rise of powerful institutions such as the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, the Vector Institute and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. These structures are well positioned to keep churning out cutting-edge research, train the next generation of AI leaders, and advance the innovation and technology transfer of AI. Our three AI Institutes are set up to offer Canadian businesses similar training programs and there's good reason for them to use these resources: Canadian enterprises that consider investing in state-of-the-art machine-learning and data infrastructure can enjoy results such as increased efficiency in manufacturing, better management of underwriting risk, minimization of fraud and reduction of health-care costs. Among the most urgent are ensuring the market is well supplied by streamlining immigration, ensuring higher education and industrial research-funding programs are well capitalized and targeted, modifying tax policies to encourage entrepreneurship and streamlining research and development tax credits to support AI investments.

DeepMind, Google's London-based artificial intelligence research branch, is launching a team at the University of Alberta in Canada. DeepMind is launching a team at the university partly for proximity to the broader AI research community in Canada. A number of leading AI researchers in Silicon Valley hail from Canada, where they plugged away at deep learning, a complex automated process of data analysis, during a period when that technology -- now popular at major tech companies -- was considered by the larger computer science community to be a dead end. Plus, almost a dozen DeepMind staff came from the university, according to a blog post by DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis announcing the new lab. An Alberta PhD and a former post doc from the school played key roles in one of DeepMind's hallmark accomplishments, getting its AlphaGo software to beat the human world champion at Chinese strategy game Go. "Our hope is that this collaboration will help turbocharge Edmonton's growth as a technology and research hub," wrote Hassabis, "attracting even more world-class AI researchers to the region and helping to keep them there too."

What if an algorithm could tell you whether you have cancer based on your CT scan or mammography exam? While I am certain that radiologists' creative work will be necessary in the future to solve complex issues and supervising diagnostic processes; AI will definitely become part of their daily routine in diagnosing simpler cases and taking over repetitive tasks. So rather than getting threatened by it, we should familiarize with how it could help change the course of radiology for the better. There is a lot of hype and plenty of fear around artificial intelligence and its impact on the future of healthcare. There are many signs pointing towards the fact that AI will completely move the world of medicine.

Mucktarr Darboe, an education and science ministry director, said after Thursday's interview at the U.S. Embassy the students were given visa letters and will pick them up Monday. Darboe said he was denied one because the U.S. is not currently granting visas to Gambian government officials. The team will be met by the Gambian American Association in Washington.