Earlier this month, the National Science and Technology Council released a report entitled: Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence. While it is promising that the Obama Administration recognizes the importance in beginning to seriously contemplate AI and its implications for human endeavors in the 21st century, the report seems intent on betting that the warnings advocated by Musk and others are not something worth worrying about today. In discussing the associated risks of potentially harmful AI, the report states: "The policies the Federal Government should adopt in the near-to-medium term if these fears are justified are almost exactly the same policies the Federal Government should adopt if they are not justified." The report goes on to assert that the best path forward is to focus on the "less extreme" near term risks inherent in AI development such as security and privacy. The issue with the government's stance here is not in its logic but rather in its assumption that the long-term concerns of AI really are long-term, seemingly declaring the alarm-sounding by industry experts as little more than science fiction overindulgence.

On October 2, Peshmerga fighters operating against ISIS near Erbil, Iraq, shot down a small hobby drone, the kind you might buy off of Amazon. But when they investigated the downed device, it exploded, killing them and injuring two French paratroopers, based out of Orleans, according to Le Monde. With that unfortunate blast, it is believed, ISIS claimed its first casualties via a weaponized hobby drone. It was a surprise to some, but not to all. The U.S. military has been pushing anti-drone tech to U.S. forces in the region with "a sense of urgency," Lt. Gen. Michael Shields, the director of Joint Improvised Threat-Defeat Organization, or JIDO, told reporters on Wednesday.

I wondered if it would be possible to use that list--and Reagan's computer skills--to assess a huge trove of campaign coverage over time, so we could compare the overall tone of articles about the different candidates. But to do this, we would need a ginormous database of campaign coverage. Digging into the Nexis newspaper archives, I collected tens of thousands of articles about Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump--whatever was published in more than 50 U.S. newspapers and websites over a 13-month period from July 2015 through August 2016. Reagan then took the data and fed it into his computer model, which spit out a complex portrait of the tone of campaign coverage over the past year. We had the beginnings of a sentiment analysis of presidential campaign coverage, one that might suggest the emotional tone of media stories about each candidate.

Today on Mars, a 13-year-old American robot will look up from its crater to photograph the arrival of a new European companion. It's a solar system first: No robot on the the surface of another planet has ever been there to greet a new space traveler. The newest arrival, named Schiaparelli, will be doing its part to ensure that someday, humans will be the ones watching and waving as ships come and go. The European Space Agency's Schiaparelli lander is touching down today in Meridiani Planum, the same area where the Opportunity rover has been trundling along since 2003. Opportunity is about 10 miles outside of Schiaparelli's landing area, and will try to photograph the parachute as the European robot plummets Marsward.

Think of it as the airborne cousin to the self-driving car: a robot in the cockpit to help human pilots fly passengers and cargo -- and eventually even replace them. The government and industry are collaborating on a program that seeks to replace the second human pilot in two-person flight crews with a robot co-pilot that never tires, gets bored, feels stressed out or gets distracted. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's arm for development of emerging technologies, and run by Aurora Flight Sciences, a private contractor. With both the military and airlines struggling with shortages of trained pilots, officials say they see an advantage to reducing the number of pilots required to fly large aircraft while at the same time increasing safety and efficiency by having a robot pick up the mundane tasks of flying. The idea is to have the robot free the human pilot, especially in emergencies and demanding situations, to think strategically.

Pisa, 11-16 July We are pleased to announce the launch of the first edition of the International Summer School on'The Regulation of Robotics in Europe: Ethical, Legal and Economic Implications', which will be held in Pisa (Tuscany, Italy) from 11th to 16th July, 2016. This unique initiative, funded by the European Commission through the Jean Monnet Program, stems from the successful experience of the RoboLaw project (www.robolaw.eu) For further information please click HERE Bruxelles, September 24th, 2014 RoboLaw enters the European Parliament RoboLaw project coordinator Prof. Erica Palmerini and RoboLaw researcher Dr. Andrea Bertolini have been invited to present a paper on the main findings of the RoboLaw project at the workshop'Upcoming issues of EU law', organised by the JURI Committee of the European Parliament. The paper presented, entitled'REGULATING ROBOTICS: A CHALLENGE FOR EUROPE' is available here Bruxelles, September 24th, 2014 RoboLaw meets NEERI at the European Commission Prof. Erica Plamerni and Dr. Andrea Bertolini will participate in a meeting with the coordinator and the researchers of NEERI - Neuro-Enhancement: Responsible Research and Innovation, an FP7 project about human enhancement. The objective of the meeting is to discuss possible future collaborations and networking.

NEW YORK: In a major breakthrough in the field of speech recognition, Microsoft researchers have created a technology that accurately recognises the words in a conversation like humans do. The team from Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research reported a speech recognition system that makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists. The researchers reported a word error rate (WER) of 5.9 percent, down from the 6.3 percent WER the team reported just last month. The 5.9 percent error rate is about equal to that of people who were asked to transcribe the same conversation, and it's the lowest ever recorded against the industry standard "Switchboard" speech recognition task. This is an historic achievement," said Xuedong Huang, the company's chief speech scientist in a Microsoft blog post. The milestone means that, for the first time, a computer can recognise the words in a conversation as well as a person would. In doing so, the team has beat a goal they set less than a year ago - and greatly exceeded everyone else's expectations as well. "Even five years ago, I wouldn't have thought we could have achieved this.

A small robot probe could make history today by becoming the first European spacecraft to survive a landing on Mars - and it is likely to be a bumpy ride. Scientists will be crossing their fingers as Schiaparelli flies itself on autopilot through the Martian atmosphere, which is expected to welcome the probe with stormy weather. The probe will take images of Mars and conduct scientific measurements on the surface, but its main purpose is to test technology for a future European Mars rover. A small robot probe could make history today by becoming the first European spacecraft to survive a landing on Mars, and it might be a bumpy ride. Scientists will be crossing their fingers as Schiaparelli (artist's impression) flies itself on autopilot through the Martian atmosphere, which is expected to welcome the probe with stormy weather You can watch the livestream on MailOnline, at Esa's website, or via its livestream channel.

The major-party presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have spent decades in the public eye as key figures of American culture. Their portraits have covered magazines, newspapers and websites for decades. The major-party presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have spent decades in the public eye as key figures of American culture. Their portraits have covered magazines, newspapers and websites. Photos: A visual history of virtual reality headsets (it ain't always pretty) p In these heady days of tech innovation it's easy to lose track of what's … A centuries-old Yemeni city stands alongside the gleaming towers of Hong Kong as one of the world's most beautiful architectural views, writes Jonathan Glancey.

The Royal Navy is planning to step up its use of AI to improve maritime defence, beginning with STARTLE, which is AI software that can can spot potential threats. At a briefing titled "Artificial Intelligence in Royal Navy Warships" hosted by non-profit TechUK, Blighty's navy announced it was keen to explore the potential of using machine-learning to improve operational capability in its fighting units under Project NELSON. Developed by Roke Manor Research, the company claims it is the first supplier to integrate AI software into a Defence Science and Technology Laboratory-sponsored maritime combat system demonstrator. Mike Hook, lead software architect on STARTLE at Roke, told The Register: "It's hard to implement new technology in warships because it has so much proprietary software. But integrating STARTLE will give it new data to do trials with."