Steve Cousins is founder and CEO of Savioke, which develops and deploys autonomous robots that work in human environments to improve people's lives. Steve was previously president and CEO of robotics incubator Willow Garage. When Bill Gates recently suggested robots should pay income tax like any other employee, I didn't immediately disagree. I applaud Gates' bold thinking to help solve one of society's biggest upcoming challenges: embracing automation in a way that "lifts all boats" instead of leaving large swaths of society behind. A robot tax would help offset the reduced revenues flowing into public coffers as machines take some jobs previously held by humans.

I'm often asked what I like best about my job. One of my top answers is public speaking, learning and networking at security and technology events around the world. Besides giving press interviews or speeches on cyberthreats, I really enjoy moderating panels and leading executive roundtables with public- and private-sector leaders at security and technology events. I often get asked to be a moderator for a few sessions at SecureWorld Expo events, InfraGard Conferences and regional technology forums, such as the upcoming MidWest Technology Leaders event. During these panel sessions, the participants typically talk about a range of (hopefully intriguing) topics that include top cybercrime trends, cyberthreat intelligence, attracting and retaining cybertalent, big industry security breaches, internal security incidents or the always interesting (but overused question) "what's keeping you up at night?" Inevitably, security and technology topics include well known themes that I have written about such as ransomware, IoT botnets, cloud computing, smart cities, smartphone security, government CISO plans, securing the smart grid, end-user training, etc. Hopefully, we get beyond the problems and spend a few minutes on solutions.

The chances of a government shutdown just went up. After all of the news over the past week -- North Korea, the special congressional election in Georgia, the White House trying to resuscitate health care (again) -- this could be the story that drives the weekend and next week: The chances of a government shutdown just increased. "White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that he hopes to use negotiations to keep the government open past April 28 in an effort to force Democrats to back some funding for creating a new wall along the U.S.-Mexico border," the Washington Post writes. "Mulvaney said the White House would be open to funding some of the Democrats' priorities -- such as paying insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act -- if Democrats agree to fund some of the more controversial parts of President Trump's agenda, notably the border wall." If this is the White House's position, it could be precarious: Democrats (and even some Republicans) are opposed to spending money for Trump's border wall.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (R) greets an airman as he boards a U.S. Air Force C-17 for a day trip to a U.S. military base in Djibouti from Doha, Qatar April 23, 2017. DJIBOUTI -- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Sunday visited Djibouti to bolster ties with the tiny and impoverished African country that is home to an important base for U.S. counterterrorism forces, including drones. Mattis, the first Trump administration official to visit Djibouti, planned to meet with President Ismail Omar Guelleh and greet U.S. and French troops. He was accompanied by Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command. The U.S. operates drone aircraft from Djibouti for surveillance and combat missions against al-Qaida-affiliated extremists in Somalia and elsewhere in the region.

By Aakar Patel There is a cliff approaching fast that India is unprepared for. It's in the near future and will be upon us in 25 or 30 years, according to the people who have understood it best. In brief it is the creation of an artificial intelligence that is smarter than man. Once this is created, it will replicate itself and improve itself faster than we can imagine, leave alone compete with. Science writers call this moment the technological singularity.

The digital identity management and biometric verification space is a busy one, with many technology providers touting some sort of machine learning or computer vision solution. So what constitutes a unique selling point in this crowd of contenders? Jumio, which offers a "hybrid" approach and counts Airbnb among its clients, says it has become familiar with 3,000 different types of onboarding identity documents from all over the planet, and currently does some 110,000 verifications a day. It's a three-pillared approach: firstly, the entry point to the system, which involves knowing some variant of government-issued ID and its particular security features, as well as the weaknesses fraudsters might attempt to exploit. Then, determining it is valid using facial recognition biometrics.

There are many choices we make over the course of our lives. Some are fairly insignificant, like the clothes we put on in the morning; others, such as the vocations we settle on, have life-changing consequences. But there's one critical decision we don't get to make: the choice of being born into a human body--and all the arbitrary ailments and inevitable biological breakdowns that follow. This is what sets health care apart from other industries. The business of medicine is quite literally one of life and death. And throughout much of the world, it remains a messy, inefficient, expensive sector in need of radical reform. Just consider some of the heart-wrenching numbers.

The EU is launching an unprecedented public consultation to find out what Europeans fear most about the future of the internet. A succession of surveys over the coming weeks will ask people for their views on everything from privacy and security to artificial intelligence, net neutrality, big data and the impact of the digital world on jobs, health, government and democracy. A dozen leading European publications, including the Guardian, are to publicise the surveys over the coming three weeks. Results will be compiled in early June. Readers can complete the first questionnaire here.

There is a cliff approaching fast that India is unprepared for. It's in the near future and will be upon us in 25 or 30 years, according to the people who have understood it best. In brief it is the creation of an artificial intelligence that is smarter than man. Once this is created, it will replicate itself and improve itself faster than we can imagine, leave alone compete with. Science writers call this moment the technological singularity.

There was a time in America, not too long ago, when most people, including journalists, business leaders, politicians, and scholars, were full-throated advocates of technologically powered productivity growth. They understood that through mechanization, automation, and other forms of innovation, we can produce more, better, and cheaper goods and services, and have higher incomes. It was understood that some workers might lose their jobs after we figured out how to do them more efficiently, but most Americans believed, to quote Star Trek's Mr. Spock, that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Those days are gone, though. Current opinion now routinely echoes the mythical 19th-century machine destroyer Ned Ludd, warning in a growing avalanche of books, academic theses, market forecasts, and op-eds that technology is leading us to a world of mass unemployment, that it is creating a newly idle lumpenproletariat, and that we had better put in place a universal basic income (UBI), under which the state cuts a check to everyone, regardless of their income or work status, if we are to have any hope of avoiding mass unrest. This kind of worry, verging on "robophobia," represents a remarkable reversal from a long period in American history -- stretching from the 1890s to the early 1970s -- when most Americans sang the praises of technology as an engine of progress that not only raised our living standards but also made America great. Exultantly titled books such as Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century, The Marvels of Modern Mechanism, Our Wonderful Progress, and Modern Wonder Workers were common.