Will your next doctor be a human being--or a machine? Will you have a choice? If you do, what should you know before making it?This book introduces the reader to the pitfalls and promises of artificial intelligence (AI) in its modern incarnation and the growing trend of systems to "reach off the Web" into the real world. The convergence of AI, social networking, and modern computing is creating an historic inflection point in the partnership between human beings and machines with potentially profound impacts on the future not only of computing but of our world and species.AI experts and researchers James Hendler--co-originator of the Semantic Web (Web 3.0)--and Alice Mulvehill--developer of AI-based operational systems for DARPA, the Air Force, and NASA--explore the social implications of AI systems in the context of a close examination of the technologies that make them possible. The authors critically evaluate the utopian claims and dystopian counterclaims of AI prognosticators.

Artificial intelligence and robotics have enjoyed a resurgence of interest, and there is renewed optimism about their place in our future. But what do they mean for us? You submitted your questions about artificial intelligence and robotics, and we put them – and some of our own – to The Conversation's experts. It is 100% plausible that we'll have human-like artificial intelligence. I say this even though the human brain is the most complex system in the universe that we know of. But there are also no physical laws we know of that would prevent us reproducing or exceeding its capabilities. Popular AI from Issac Asimov to Steven Spielberg is plausible. What the question doesn't address is: when will it be plausible?

David Bruemmer is the co-founder, president and CTO of 5D Robotics. One might ask why we would ever want to create robots that can do human work when we have so many people who need jobs. The goal of robotics should not be to replace humans with robots, but rather to improve productivity and safety, removing humans from harm's way and enabling them to focus on things that humans should be doing. We can agree that humans shouldn't be carrying heavy loads, exposing themselves to radiation or finding land mines. What is less clear is the gray area, where the line that divides human and robot competency is becoming blurred.

For more than 65 years, computer scientists have studied whether robots' behavior could become indistinguishable from human intelligence. But while we've focused on machines, have we ignored changes to our own capabilities? In a book due to be published next year, Being Human in the 21st Century, a law professor and a philosopher argue that we've overlooked the equally important, inverse question: Are humans becoming more like robots? In 1950, computer scientist Alan Turing put forward what's now known as the "Turing Test." Essentially, Turing proposed that a key test of machine thinking is whether someone asking the same questions to both a human and a robot could tell which is which. This has since become an important method to evaluate artificial intelligence, with regular Turing Test competitions to determine the extent of robots' growing ability to mimic human behavior.

Google's DeepMind has reduced its power consumption thanks to artificial intelligence Google is using the firm's artificial intelligence system to control parts of its data centers, DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis told Bloomberg on Tuesday. DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014, is using its AI engine to change how data center servers and cooling systems work to reduce power consumption. The company didn't say how much it's saving Google. Hassabis tipped a 15 percent improvement in power efficiency since Google launched the program this year, which he said is a "huge savings in terms of cost." The average electricity price in the US can range from 25 to 40 per megawatt hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA) wants robots that can walk like human beings and do other human activities, such as climbing ladders, using tools, and completing other day-to-day activities. But that requires a bit of stability. Now, one team has taken us a step closer to that dream by creating the SRI DURUS robot. SRI is one of the teams funded by DARPA that is tasked with creating robots that are ultimately 20 times more efficient walkers (as compared to their predecessor)s. Recent work shows that DURUS has almost reached its goal of being 20 times better than ATLAS, another bipedal robot.

VIENTIANE – Southeast Asian nations are in unparalleled disarray over Beijing's saber-rattling in the South China Sea, analysts and insiders say, with the fractures set to deepen as staunch China ally Laos hosts top regional diplomats this weekend. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are among the delegates due to fly in from Sunday for two days of meetings in Vientiane, the capital of the communist nation. The South China Sea is set to cast a long shadow over the summit that is hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Earlier this month a U.N.-backed tribunal found there was no legal basis for China's claims to most of the strategic and resource-rich seas -- a ruling rejected as "waste paper" by Beijing. ASEAN prides itself on consensus diplomacy but divisions have never been starker with Beijing blamed for driving a wedge between members. The Philippines brought the international arbitration case, while fellow ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have competing claims to parts of the sea.

With the unemployment rate falling to 5.3 percent, the lowest in seven years, policy makers are heaving a sigh of relief. Indeed, with the technology boom in progress, there is a lot to be optimistic about. Manufacturing will be returning to U.S. shores with robots doing the job of Chinese workers; American carmakers will be mass-producing self-driving electric vehicles; technology companies will develop medical devices that greatly improve health and longevity; we will have unlimited clean energy and 3D print our daily needs. The cost of all of these things will plummet and make it possible to provide for the basic needs of every human being. I am talking about technology advances that are happening now, which will bear fruit in the 2020s. But policy makers will have a big new problem to deal with: the disappearance of human jobs. Not only will there be fewer jobs for people doing manual work, the jobs of knowledge workers will also be replaced by computers.

Big data overload is already beginning, but analytics can't do everything. So focus on business needs, experiment, and look for actionable insights, say government's data experts. How DIBP is using AI to measure risk. The astounding possibilities of the big data era and the internet of things are only just beginning to emerge and already there is a problem: data overload. Artificial intelligence is a big part of successful new data-driven approaches to public sector challenges, like the Department of Immigration and Border Protection's Border Risk Identification System, and might also be the key to extracting business value from the data deluge.

After nearly four years on the job, NASA's Curiosity rover is finally making certain scientific decisions on its own. The Martian explorer now picks some of the rock targets to blast with the laser on its ChemCam instrument. A software upgrade known as AEGIS allows the rover to make key decisions when Mars is out of sync with Curiosity's handlers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, delivering more data in less time. It's the first time a robot has been able to choose such science targets autonomously on any planetary mission. "Time on Mars is valuable and we get more data this way and we get the data much faster," said AEGIS team member Raymond Francis, a scientific applications software engineer at JPL.