Despite political discord, the American economy is doing well, Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Thursday. "I think the math is the American economy is doing well, and the unemployment situation is [going] well, and if you're confused on that, visit Europe," Schmidt said. Schmidt spoke from the DealBook Conference in New York City, hosted by CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and the editors of the Times. The conference focuses on "playing for the long term" in a business environment that's shackled to quarterly returns and compressed news cycles. After an election cycle that stoked arguments over the shrinking middle class and widening inequality, Schmidt addressed the role that information played in the political process.

CBR looks at the'Artificial intelligence: an overview for policy-makers' report from the Government Office for Science. The UK government is driving the artificial intelligence agenda, pinpointing it as a future technology driving the fourth revolution and billing its importance on par with the steam engine. The report on Artificial Intelligence by the Government Office for Science follows the recent House of Commons Committee report on Robotics and AI, setting out the opportunities and implications for the future of decision making. In a report which spans government deployment, ethics and the labour market, Digital Minister Matt Hancock provided a foreword which pushed AI as a technology which would benefit the economy and UK citizens. "As one the world's leading digital nations, artificial intelligence presents a huge opportunity for the UK. Get this right, and we can create a more prosperous economy with better and more fulfilling jobs," Mr Hancock wrote in the report.

The shape of multicoloured three-dimensional puzzle Rubik's Cube is not a trademark, the European Court of Justice has ruled. It means the shape of the cube alone is not enough to protect it from being copied. UK company Seven Towns, which manages Rubik's Cube's intellectual property rights, registered its shape as a trademark in in the 1990s. But German firm Simba Toys challenged the trademark protection in 2006. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) agreed that the cube's ability to rotate should be protected by a patent and not a trademark.

That there's little love lost between Donald Trump and Silicon Valley is hardly a new revelation. But while a Trump Administration's relationship with the tech elite is bound to be more distant and chillier than a Clinton Administration's would have been, its policies may simply be sub-optimal for the tech sector rather than disastrous -- and with some notable silver linings. On one hand, a lack of the close ties prominent tech execs formed with the Obama Administration, and appeared set to maintain with a Clinton Administration, could cause some problems. Obama, who recently guest-edited an issue of Wired magazine and gave the publication a thoughtful interview on various tech topics, has been willing to lend an ear to Silicon Valley's views on issues such as autonomous driving regulations, encryption keys, artificial intelligence research and STEM education funding. Trump, who appears to know much less about tech and briefly called for a boycott of Apple (AAPL) in response to the company's unwillingness to help break the encryption on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, probably won't be holding talks with the likes of Tim Cook and Facebook's (FB) Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg as frequently.

The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) said Thursday that some of the computers at its secretariat have likely been compromised by irregular access. The nation's largest business lobby has set up a special team to investigate whether the computers were infected by viruses and whether information was stolen. Important information on lobbying, including documents exchanged with the government and lists of names, were uploaded to a cloud storage system accessible by the computers, according to Keidanren. On Friday, a company commissioned to manage Keidanren's network informed the business lobby that unusual interactions were seen between outside servers at seven overseas locations and some computers at the secretariat. An unusually large number of accesses took place during hours when the secretariat's computers are normally not in use.

Google has built machine learning systems that can create their own cryptographic algorithms -- the latest success for AI's use in cybersecurity. But what are the implications of our digital security increasingly being handed over to intelligent machines? Google Brain, the company's California-based AI unit, managed the recent feat by pitting neural networks against each other. Two systems, called Bob and Alice, were tasked with keeping their messages secret from a third, called Eve. None were told how to encrypt messages, but Bob and Alice were given a shared security key that Eve didn't have access too.

Artificial intelligence is already everywhere. Robots are performing surgeries, courts use AI to help determine sentencing and bots trade on the stock market all day. Last week, 150 academics and industry experts published the U.S. Roadmap for Robotics -- just ahead of the presidential election -- to help guide Congress as it moves to figure out how to allocate federal funds to encourage innovation, keep humans safe and, importantly, make sure America remains a global leader. The first Roadmap for Robotics report, published in 2009, inspired the Obama administration to launch the National Robotics Initiative in 2011, a program that allocated $70 million to advancing robotics research in the United States. The 2016 report is a 100-page tome packed with specific, technical recommendations that the contributors believe will be important for Congress to fund and support as robotics starts to take center stage across U.S. industries.

Prior to the era of Artificial Intelligence, humans would collaborate on decisions. As the saying goes, "two brains are better than one." But with advancements in AI, screening data and ideas has been made easier and more efficient. Its impact on the economy and its implications regarding the future of the workforce has ignited a fierce debate that has been contributed to by everyone from Silicon Valley to the White House. Of course there are naysayers, like Nick Bostrom, who warns that AI could quickly turn dark and dispose of humans altogether, saying, "The subsequent world would harbor economic miracles and technological awesomeness, with nobody there to benefit."

MogIA, an artificial intelligence (AI) system developed by an Indian start-up, correctly predicted the outcome of this year's elections. It based its analysis on 20 million data points from platforms such as Google, Twitter, and YouTube, reviewing public engagement across various posts in relation to individual candidates. Earlier this year, an AI system was able to accurately predict the winners of the Kentucky Derby. In October, a study reported that AI can already predict the outcomes of cases at the European Court of Human Rights with a 79% accuracy. Leading up to the historic election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton led the late polls with a small, but consistent lead.

Think that working in the insurance field can't be exciting, rewarding and challenging? You'll help us reinvent protection and retirement to improve customers' lives. We'll help you make an impact with our training and mentoring offerings. Here, you'll have the opportunity to expand and apply your skills in ways you never thought possible. And you'll have fun doing it.