It was a public engagement exercise that turned into a national row after a public poll to name a new British research vessel saw the name Boaty McBoatface get the most support. But Google has had a cheeky dig at the humourless officials in the British government who objected to the name by calling its latest artificial intelligence software Parsey McParseface. The technology firm, which has just become the world's largest company, has released software that uses sophisticated machine learning to analyse the linguistic structure of language. It forms part of an open-source neural network aimed at training computers to understand how human languages are put together so they can be processed. It announced the English version of this system is called Parsey McParseface in a blog that outlined how it hopes the software will transform artificial intelligence.

The U.S. Air Force is looking to fund the development of a system that allows it to easily convert any of its manned aircraft into robot-piloted planes, potentially making huge portions of its existing fleet fully autonomous. According to a public solicitation notice, the "drop-in" system would "rapidly convert a variety of traditionally manned aircraft" to be autonomously controlled without any modifications to the aircraft itself. That means that unlike the Navy's fully autonomous X47-B drone, the robot would use vision-based recognition systems to "manually" read gauges and operate the yoke, throttle and other controls just like a human pilot as soon as it's dropped into the cockpit. "Non-invasive approaches to robotically piloted aircraft using existing commercial technology and components offer the benefits of unmanned operations without the complexity and upfront cost associated with the development of new unmanned vehicles," the Air Force's posting reads. "Such a system will have the ability to automatically pilot an aircraft using only the gauges and cockpit controls available to a human pilot thus eliminating custom design and integration costs."

The experimental Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) recently sewed a piglet's gut together using a computer program and camera-based guidance, overseen by a team of doctors and computer scientists from the Children's National Health System in Washington DC and Johns Hopkins University. The procedure took 50 minutes, as opposed to 8 minutes when performed by a surgeon, but (unfortunately for doctors) resulted in more evenly spaced sutures and less leakage from the gut. And with iterative improvements, it's likely that the time difference can be shrunk. Meanwhile, FDA-approved robotic surgery on humans is making strides as well, though it requires a surgeon to operate the mechanical arm. The potential treatment paradigm, highlighted by The Economist this month, raises questions about whether patients will trust robots with their lives, and who is liable if something goes wrong. Another question robots pose: Are doctors in line for a string of layoffs?

Today's security systems usually fall into one of two categories: man or machine. So-called "analyst-driven solutions" rely on rules created by human experts and therefore miss any attacks that don't match the rules. Meanwhile, today's machine-learning approaches rely on "anomaly detection," which tends to trigger false positives that both create distrust of the system and end up having to be investigated by humans, anyway. But what if there was a solution that could merge those two worlds? What would it look like?

It's probably years away from being used in West Virginia, but computer-based artificial intelligence appears to be helping law enforcement officers find wildlife poachers. Researchers are combining AI with something called "game theory" to plan patrols based on the topography, game movements and past instances of illegal activity in a given area. "In most parks, ranger patrols are poorly planned, reactive rather than pro-active, and habitual," said Fei Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in the computer science department at the University of Southern California. In other words, the horse is usually out of the barn by the time the law arrives -- and if the law does happen to arrive before law breakers do their thing, officers execute their patrols so predictably the bad guys often are able to avoid them. The National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office are supporting research into using AI to put patrols on the ground before poachers have a chance to poach.

Collaboration With STFC Hartree Centre Taps into IBM Watson to Improve Patient Experience. Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust today announced a ground-breaking multi-year collaborative programme with the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Hartree Centre, supported by IBM (NYSE: IBM), to create the United Kingdom's first'cognitive' hospital by harnessing'big data' and the power of IBM's Watson technology platform. This is the first time that Watson technology will be applied to improve patient experience in the United Kingdom. Alder Hey and the Hartree Centre believe that by applying Watson -- an innovation in computing technology -- it will enhance patient care and potentially generate savings for both the hospital and the NHS (National Health Service) as a whole. Using Watson to analyse any feedback that is voluntarily and securely provided by the patients, with appropriate consent as needed, it is anticipated that Alder Hey will be able to greatly enhance patient experience by; identifying patient anxieties and providing information and reassurance on-demand; reminding young patients and their parents about appointments and about aftercare; and providing insightful feedback to clinicians based on the tone and sentiment of these interactions.

Conversations about basic income, a government-funded salary given to every citizen, used to take place in the dingy offices of extremist left-wing politicians, or in the campus dorm rooms of idealistic students determined to fix the problems of the previous generation. The conversation was about social responsibility. It wasn't an economic case, it was a moral one. A sharp uptake in technology designed to automate jobs and replace human workers is bringing new voices to this old debate. Today's society could be disastrously affected by artificial intelligence and growing automation, and scientists and technologists are looking for ways to stop that damage before it happens.

Virtual assistants are coming of age. Viv, a new virtual assistant with advanced natural language processing skills that allow her to understand complex commands, is set to disrupt the customer experience. What does it mean for the enterprise? In this week's Searchlight, Site Editor Fran Sales details the new AI-powered assistant and explores the potential impact it will have on businesses and IT departments. Having a clear-cut IT strategy is key establishing a competitive advantage over any competition.

There are a lot of major problems today with tangible, real-world consequences. A short list might include terrorism, U.S.-Russian relations, climate change and biodiversity loss, income inequality, health care, childhood poverty, and the homegrown threat of authoritarian populism, most notably associated with the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, Donald Trump. Yet if you've been paying attention to the news for the past several years, you've almost certainly seen articles from a wide range of news outlets about the looming danger of artificial general intelligence, or "AGI." For example, Stephen Hawking has repeatedly expressed that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," and Elon Musk -- of Tesla and SpaceX fame -- has described the creation of superintelligence as "summoning the demon." Furthermore, the Oxford philosopher and director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Nick Bostrom, published a New York Times best-selling book in 2014 called Superintelligence, in which he suggests that the "default outcome" of building a superintelligent machine will be "doom." Should we really be worried about a takeover by killer computers hell-bent on the total destruction of Homo sapiens?

Regardless of the analysis of smartphone market share, Office and cloud revenues, quarterly profits, gaming consoles sales, Surface hardware, or search engine relevance, Microsoft remains a large company employing diversified and talented individuals. Often, the individuals under Microsoft's employ do double duty as the brilliant minds creating projects and industries for the company while also pioneering advancements, groundbreaking achievements, and technologies in fields outside of their immediate obligations. Recently, Yuval Peres and Robert Schapire joined the long list of Microsoft employees and researchers who have been recognized by their peers for their achievements in their respective fields. Peres and Schapire's are receiving perhaps the highest honor in science and research by being elected to the Nation Academy of Sciences. Peres and Schapire's recognition will see them become part of new 84 members and 21 foreign associate groups that will be joining the National Academy this year.