DALLAS/HOUSTON/LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON – When Dallas police improvised a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon. In what appears to be an unprecedented tactic, police rigged a bomb-disposal robot to kill an armed suspect in the fatal shootings of five officers in Dallas. While there doesn't appear to be any hard data on the subject, security experts and law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall another time when police deployed a robot with lethal intent. The strategy opens a new chapter in the escalating use of remote-controlled and semi-autonomous devices to fight crime and protect lives. It also raises new questions over when it's appropriate to dispatch a robot to kill dangerous suspects instead of continuing to negotiate their surrender.

Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. When Dallas police used a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon.

The use of a robot by Dallas police to kill a gunman after he'd shot a number of police officers appears to have been the first time U.S. law enforcement intentionally used a robot lethally, experts said. Dallas officials said Friday that officers decided to use a bomb-disposal robot jury-rigged with C-4 explosives after negotiating with the suspect for several hours and then exchanging gunfire with him.

For more than 30 years, Gibbs has advised on and developed product and service marketing for many businesses and he has consulted, lectured, and authored numerous articles and books. So the UK has just given itself a national headache. Whether you think the Brexit was the right decision or a dangerous and unmitigated screw-up (as I do), the consequences of the referendum will be non-trivial and take years to complete. But the mechanics of the UK exiting the European Union aside, the question of how people now feel about the Brexit is interesting. Are they awash in jubilation or has buyer's remorse set in?

This week, self-driving Tesla had a fatal crash. Other than that – a lot about robots, can AI create an art, cloning animals and more! Ray Kurzweil and people like him believe the Singularity is just behind the corner and promise the new perfect world. They are very optimistic about the future. But sometimes you should listen to the other side to better understand the problem or vision.

After sniper fire struck 12 police officers at a rally in downtown Dallas, killing five, police cornered a single suspect in a parking garage. After a prolonged exchange of gunfire and a five-hour-long standoff, police made what experts say was an unprecedented decision: to send in a police robot, jury-rigged with a bomb. "We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," Dallas Police Chief David Brown told a news conference Friday. "Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb."

The Juno space probe is now in orbit around Jupiter, meaning space buffs around the world are eagerly awaiting whatever new data the probe sends back. One of those space buffs is science fiction author Stephen Baxter, who recently collaborated with Alastair Reynolds on the novel The Medusa Chronicles. The book is an authorized sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's famous 1971 novella "A Meeting with Medusa," about an astronaut who discovers intelligent life on Jupiter. "All this comes from Carl Sagan, the great astronomer, who hypothesized that somewhere in Jupiter's deep cloud layers … you could have a great ocean, a gaseous ocean, where gigantic creatures could live," Baxter says in Episode 211 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Baxter is well-positioned to carry on Clarke's legacy, having collaborated with Clarke on four novels, a process that was sometimes complicated by the fact that the two men lived on different continents.

The Dallas PD's actions appear to mark the first time in US history authorities have used a robot or drone armed with a bomb to kill a civilian. This comes at a time when police forces across the nation are being criticized and scrutinized for using military-style tools. After a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, in Ferguson, Missouri, last year, riots broke out in the area and police responded with weapons, vehicles and gear intended for military use. Images of Ferguson police in military-style body armor holding assault rifles sparked a debate about the militarization of police forces across the United States. Armed robots are the latest tool to transition from the battlefield to civilian life.

Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. Dallas police respond after shots were fired during a protest over recent fatal shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, Thursday, July 7, 2016, in Dallas. Snipers opened fire on police officers during protests; several officers were killed, police said. When Dallas police used a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon.

Breakthroughs in genetic fuzzy systems, most notably the development of the Genetic Fuzzy Tree methodology, have allowed fuzzy logic based Artificial Intelligences to be developed that can be applied to incredibly complex problems. The ability to have extreme performance and computational efficiency as well as to be robust to uncertainties and randomness, adaptable to changing scenarios, verified and validated to follow safety specifications and operating doctrines via formal methods, and easily designed and implemented are just some of the strengths that this type of control brings. Within this white paper, the authors introduce ALPHA, an Artificial Intelligence that controls flights of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles in aerial combat missions within an extreme-fidelity simulation environment. To this day, this represents the most complex application of a fuzzy-logic based Artificial Intelligence to an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle control problem. While development is on-going, the version of ALPHA presented withinwas assessed by Colonel (retired)Gene Lee who described ALPHA as "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible AI (he's) seen-to-date."