Investors believe it is'inevitable' that artificial intelligence will destroy millions of jobs and that governments are unprepared for such an impact, according to a new survey. Artificial intelligence (AI), or the process by which computers or robots take on tasks that need human intelligence, is one of the key themes of this week's Web Summit in Lisbon. The poll among 224 venture capitalists attending the conference showed 53 percent believed AI would destroy millions of jobs and 93 percent saw governments as unprepared for this. The poll among 224 venture capitalists attending the Web summit in Lisbon found 53 percent believed AI would destroy millions of jobs and 93 percent saw governments as unprepared for this. The survey also found that 83 percent of the investors canvassed expect Britain's exit from the European Union to damage Europe's economy and 77 percent believe it will damage British startups.

Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of the U.S. presidential race, it was easy to miss the Obama administration's release this month of a slim, 48-page report titled "Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence." Yet the subject of the report -- and the changes it foreshadows -- may prove to be as consequential for our society, and our education system, as even the most high-stakes national election. The term "artificial intelligence" means different things to different people, but broadly speaking, it refers to computers and advanced machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans, respond to novel or nuanced situations as a person might, and most critically, learn from experiences as a human would. According to a recent survey, 80 percent of AI researchers believe that computers and advanced machines will eventually achieve levels of artificial intelligence that rival human intelligence. Moreover, half believe that this will happen by the year 2040 -- just one generation from now.

November 2016: we have a newly elected president, and there is as much suspense about the future of our country as there is about the role that Artificial Intelligence is about to play in our lives. While the presidential election is over, the technology election campaign for the most usable and useful AI gadget is just heating up, and we will all be voting with our dollar. From the point of view of business investors, ChatBots have to be profitable to have a chance. One obvious and far-reaching opportunity is the replacement of human service representatives who can cost businesses anywhere from $1 to $30 (or more!) per call/transaction, all things considered. Even with outsourcing, the costs are substantial, and include calling center maintenance, training of the representatives, insurance, support -- all that does not come to mind when all we need is a minute or two of someone's time.

Flynn has also been outspoken in his warnings about the dangers of Islamist groups, complaining on CNN in June that the U.S. needs to "discredit" radical Islam, but that "we're not allowed to do that right now." He accused the Obama administration in a New York Post op-ed in July of failing to design a coherent strategy for opposing the Islamic State group. And in August, he spoke at an event in Dallas for the anti-Islamist group Act for America, saying that Islam "is a political ideology" and that it "definitely hides behind being a religion."

Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn gestures as he arrives at Trump Tower, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, in New York. Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn gestures as he arrives at Trump Tower, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, in New York. FILE- In this file photo taken on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center right, with retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, center left, and Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, obscured second right, attend an exhibition marking the 10th anniversary of RT (Russia Today) 24-hour English-language TV news channel in Moscow, Russia. Flynn is widely reported Thursday Nov. 17, 2016, to be a potential contender to become national security advisor to U.S. president elect Donald Trump, although his appointment may be controversial. Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn walks through the lobby at Trump Tower, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, in New York.

The day before the election, as millions of Americans were feeling confident that the vast majority of the country shared their opinions, a pair of researchers at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute published a paper that looked closely at something many of us ignored: the provenance of political tweets. Where do they come from? How many are, in reality, made by humans? And if not, who is designing these crude straw-bots? Analyzing Twitter during three televised debates, they discovered that 20% of all political tweets were made by bots.

No humans were remotely piloting the drone, which was nothing more than a machine that could be bought on Amazon. But armed with advanced artificial intelligence software, it had been transformed into a robot that could find and identify the half-dozen men carrying replicas of AK-47s around the village and pretending to be insurgents.

Saya had been teaching for seven years. Her impressive but short CV included stints in a few rural areas, overseas and as a substitute teacher. The difference is Saya is a remote controlled robot who taught her first class of 10-year olds in 2009. While we've all heard and read the stories of manual or labour-type jobs easily replaced by robots, increasingly the jobs we previously thought safe are no longer -- teachers, bankers, data analysts and the like are all at risk. But what do we really have to fear?

General Electric builds jet engines and wind turbines and medical gear. But the 124-year-old industrial giant is also transforming itself for the digital age. It's fashioning software that pulls data from all this hardware, hoping to gain an insight into industrial operations that was never possible in the past. The problem is that analyzing all this data is difficult, and the talent needed to make it happen is scarce. So GE is going shopping.

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO Alphabet Inc's Google faces a tougher regulatory landscape as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration looks poised to reverse Obama administration policies that often favored the internet giant in the company's battles with telecoms and cable heavyweights, analysts say.