But it could be a real threat, warn researchers at the recent World Economic Forum. Unlike today's drones, which are still controlled by human operators, autonomous weapons could potentially be programmed to select and engage targets on their own. "It was one of the concerns that we itemized last year," Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence (AI) at the school of computer science and engineering at the University of New South Wales, told FoxNews.com. "Most of us believe that we don't have the ability to build ethical robots," he added. "What is especially worrying is that the various militaries around the world will be fielding robots in just a few years, and we don't think anyone will be building ethical robots."

A bronze bell has been recovered from a Japanese submarine that was sunk intentionally off the Hawaiian Islands by U.S. forces 70 years ago. Researchers from the Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) in two submersibles, Pisces IV and Pisces V, used a robotic arm to retrieve the bell that was resting on the seafloor. The bell was from the I-400 - a World War II-era Imperial Japanese Navy mega-submarine, lost since 1946. Longer than a football field at 400 feet, the I-400 was known as a "Sen-Toku" class submarine - the largest submarine ever built until the introduction of nuclear-powered subs in the 1960s. "It was an exciting day for the submersible operations crews of Pisces IV and Pisces V," Terry Kerby, HURL operations director and chief submarine pilot, said in a statement.

This week, banker's fears were confirmed and the robot revolution has begun. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will sack hundreds of face-to-face advisers and replace them with a robo-advisory online service, after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved this technology. "Our customers increasingly want to bank with us using digital technology. As a result, we are scaling back our face-to-face advisers and significantly investing in an online investing platform that enables us to help a new group of customers with as little as 500 to invest," a RBS and NatWest spokesperson said in a statement according to the BBC. More and more banks are searching for digital options because they are cheaper and easier to use, and this attitude is advocated by the FCA.

Daniel Faggella is founder of TechEmergence, a news and advice website for entrepreneurs and investors interested in the intersection of technology and the mind. "Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next ten." These words, articulated by Neil Armstrong at a speech to a joint session of Congress in 1969, fit squarely into most every decade since the turn of the century, and it seems to safe to posit that the rate of change in technology has accelerated to an exponential degree in the last two decades, especially in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Artificial intelligence is making an extreme entrance into almost every facet of society in predicted and unforeseen ways, causing both excitement and trepidation.

Have you ever wanted to mess with a video by making its cast say things they never would on camera? You might get that chance. Researchers have built a face detection system that lets you impose your facial expressions on people in videos. The software uses an off-the-shelf webcam to create a 3D model of your face in real time, and distorts it to fit the facial details in the target footage. The result, as you'll see below, is eerily authentic-looking: you can have a dead-serious Vladimir Putin make funny faces, or Donald Trump blab when he'd otherwise stay silent.

Artificial intelligence-related research has tremendous potential to become useful in practical, everyday applications and to dramatically increase productivity. The field has been developing rapidly in recent years and is expected to really start taking off in the near future. A few of the cool things happening on the cutting edge in AI are highlighted below. AI Crossword App Could Help Machines Understand Language Researchers have designed a web-based platform that uses artificial neural networks to answer standard crossword clues better than existing commercial products specifically designed for the task. The system, which is freely available online, could help machines understand language more effectively.

A near miss between a drone and a Lufthansa aircraft landing at Los Angeles International Airport may give impetus to moves to regulate consumer drones more closely, including by using technologies like geofencing. "This is one more incident that could have brought down an airliner, and it's completely unacceptable. A near-miss of 200 feet should serve as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by reckless drone use," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, in a statement. The senator said the Senate must pass legislation she introduced last year, called the Consumer Drone Safety Act, which would require safety features for consumer drones and strengthen the federal laws that govern their operation. The bill would, among other things, direct the Federal Aviation Administration to require safety features for newly manufactured consumer drones, such as geofencing to govern the altitude and location of flights and collision-avoidance software.

Japan is spending more than 1 billion to resurrect the area around the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant as the country's "Innovation Coast." The region is trying to capitalize on technology developed in the five years spent cleaning up the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, including Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. robots that slither like snakes or cruise through radioactive water like speed boats to investigate the flooded reactors. Fukushima Prefecture -- like Beirut or post-bankruptcy Detroit -- is ripe to develop a strong tech community, according to Samhir Vasdev, an innovation consultant at the World Bank. "To lead the future from Fukushima, we must overcome our failures," Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori said at the Foreign Press Center in Tokyo last month. "Creating new industries will attract new people, which will be vital to revitalizing the region."

OutsideIQ develops innovative artificial intelligence solutions that use big data to address complex risk-based questions and problems. ABC and FCPA policies require corporations to uphold proper compliance processes. OutsideIQ provides a fully auditable and sourced due diligence report, allowing corporations to operate without additional changes to their infrastructure. We are occupying a world where data is more than a commodity, it is becoming a currency, providing real value to companies who can efficiently extract data to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors and make better decisions. Over the years, big data technology has been in a revolution, developing new ways to find value in data.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence technology are raising ethical questions, as pointed out by Dr Jason Millar ("The momentous advance in artificial intelligence demands a new set of ethics", Comment). He asks whether it is desirable to develop autonomous systems that operate beyond human control. Other ethical dilemmas may arise sooner than we think. While many have poured scorn on the idea that robots could possess consciousness, if consciousness can be interpreted as an algorithm – a series of logical cause-and-effect statements – then, because the output of an algorithm is platform-independent, there is no reason in principle why that algorithm should not operate in a robot. There is a debate as to whether brain activity is algorithmic, but other forms of biological information processing are and there is no convincing evidence to the contrary.