Just over 65 years ago, Alan Turing famously posed the following question: Can machines think? In Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Turing investigates the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the idea that machine-based life may indeed meet or surpass the boundaries of human intellect. Since Turing's essay and over the course of the last several years, leaders in the technology industry, public intellectuals and mathematicians and philosophers alike have begun to sound the alarm on advances in AI computing, warning of the potential unforeseen end results of placing such super-intelligence "online". Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, shocked many in 2014 when he postulated that the world's greatest existential threat was likely not nuclear war or climate change but rather the unboxing of an ill-considered AI, an act he would refer to as "summoning the demon". In subsequent interviews, Musk has carefully elaborated on his view, still cautioning against a foolish act on the part of those at the forefront of AI development.

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Pulling these threads together, recently a gaming AI defeated a US Air Force expert combat pilot in simulated combat.

How to survive the age of Artificial Intelligence? Part 2: "World urban population will double in 2050. So, what should be done? With an exploding world population increasingly becoming urban, new technologies like AI threatening the job market, what should we do? I've read up multiple blogs and articles available out there and couldn't figure out a clear answer – most of them stopped at scaremongering. So, here's an attempt to start finding the solutions. These in no way are concrete solutions, but I see it as a start for ideas and thoughts. As I write this blog, sweeping changes are being made in the world political scene. Donald Trump is the president-elect of USA, Theresa May is busy finding solutions to wriggle out of the BREXIT mess, Modi with one stroke of an executive order has demonetized a major chunk of currencies (Rs) in India. The common theme is CHANGE. We need similar sweeping changes in our policies to be prepared for the future. Future work for humans is not heavy lifting, but creative. Our policies should start focusing on "How could a driver earn his living in the near future?", "How could they contribute to knowledge & creativity?", not "How many unskilled workers got trained as plumbers?" What are they going to do & how will they survive. Does our current rote-based learning system prepare them for future? Focus should be on improving basic needs at rural areas and discourage urbanisation. Policies should also focus on de-urbanisation, like "How to incentivise skilled people like doctors, teachers etc to move to rural areas?" Let's only hope this becomes mainstream policies (like Paris climate agreement). Voters should start demanding action from the elected representatives and start probing on their thoughts. Cost of treating the damage to environment (e.g., air & water pollution) and humans (e.g., depression, medicare) will prove to be very costly. Do we leave everything to our policy makers? We could also start with small changes. Atleast for workers in the knowledge industry this flexibility exists. Learning new skills is going to be very critical in the coming years. There are business & social opportunities in skill development & education. Read part-1 of the series: Why smart city is a dumb strategy? Read part-2 of the series: "World urban population will double in 2050.

A withering factory town in the rust belt is looking for revival through a dose of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "robot revolution." Kadoma's population in Osaka Prefecture has shrunk 13 percent as the nation ages, prompting mergers among elementary schools and emergency services departments. Factories can't find enough people to run assembly lines, further threatening an industrial base that includes titan Panasonic Corp. and smaller businesses like Izumo Co., a maker of industrial rubber. Yet Izumo President Tsutomu Otsubo doesn't believe the solution involves finding more people. He'd rather find more machines to do the work so his company can capitalize on Abe's plan to quadruple Japan's robotics sector into a ¥2.4 trillion ($20 billion) industry by 2020. "We want to create a mass-production system run by robots and tap into the global market," said Otsubo, in the prefabricated office that's tacked to the side of his aging factory.

Five years ago, a team of researchers from Google announced a remarkable achievement in one of the world's top scientific journals, Nature. Without needing the results of a single medical check-up, they were nevertheless able to track the spread of influenza across the US. What's more, they could do it more quickly than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Google's tracking had only a day's delay, compared with the week or more it took for the CDC to assemble a picture based on reports from doctors' surgeries. Google was faster because it was tracking the outbreak by finding a correlation between what people searched for online and whether they had flu symptoms. Not only was "Google Flu Trends" quick, accurate and cheap, it was theory-free. Google's engineers didn't bother to develop a hypothesis about what search terms – "flu symptoms" or "pharmacies near me" – might be correlated with the spread of the disease itself.

One of the most outspoken critics of President-elect Donald Trump leading up to the election was Mark Cuban, tech mogul, owner of the NBA's Mavericks and Shark Tank co-host. Now Cuban has apparently decided to move past his previous, and at times quite harsh, critiques of Trump to instead implore him make the U.S. the world leader in robotics. SEE ALSO: The inevitable robot takeover is here, and it's starting at the mall "We need to help develop domestic companies much like we did the electric car and wind and solar industries," wrote Cuban in a blog post on Sunday night. "Even if it means trying to help pick winners. We have to win the robotics race. We are not even close right now."

Louis Rosenberg thinks he has found a way to make us all a lot smarter. Rosenberg runs a Silicon Valley startup called Unanimous AI, which has built a tool to support human decision-making by crowdsourcing opinions online. It lets hundreds of participants respond to a question all at once, pooling their collective insight, biases and varying expertise into a single answer. Since launching in June, Unanimous AI has registered around 50,000 users and answered 230,000 questions. Rosenberg thinks this hybrid human-computer decision-making machine – once dubbed an'artificial' artificial intelligence – could help us tackle some of the world's toughest questions.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has designed the ape-like robot RoboSimian The disaster-response robot is competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge finals RoboSimian has four limbs, no head and multiple cameras NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has designed the ape-like robot RoboSimian When we imagine the robots of the future, they often look and move like humans, standing up on two legs and using a pair of arms to grab and move objects. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on a different kind of robot for disaster response that's designed to move like an ape. Headless but covered with seven cameras that act as "eyes," the RobotSimian has four identical limbs that do double duty as arms and legs. Together, they ably move the robot across rough terrain and rubble but can also pick up and manipulate objects. It has wheels it can coast on if the surface is smooth enough.

When I was a scrawny little chap, shortest in my high school class, I always wanted a super power. Wanted doesn't capture the feeling. I would have given a limb for a super power. I read a lot of books back then (and now) and landed on a super power that had something to do with the brain. I eventually landed on Prof. Xavier of the X-Men.