Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan will kick off South by South Lawn: A White House Festival of Ideas, Art and Action, which starts Monday morning with Govan's breakfast conversation with light-and-space artist James Turrell and architect David Adjaye. The event is a White House riff on the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals, where President Obama appeared this year in a keynote conversation. Govan's talk with Turrell and Adjaye, architect of the Smithsonian Institution's new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, will take place at the nearby Newseum. "I'm excited the arts are a lead in the White House's efforts to get us all to think big," Govan said by email. "James Turrell and David Adjaye are two big thinkers who have worked persistently to pursue their art and make meaningful contributions to our culture."

Africa's wildlife is in a constant state of danger. Between 2009 and 2015, Tanzania and Mozambique lost more than half of their elephants, many of them to poaching for ivory smuggling. The decline has propelled African vulture populations, who feed on elephant carcasses, toward extinction too. And attempts at curtailing poaching and ivory smuggling haven't helped the dwindling elephant population. In South Africa, rhinos are a prized poaching target too, for their horns.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Automakers and regulators have proclaimed that self-driving vehicles could revolutionize mobility for the elderly. President Obama wrote in a September Op-Ed, "Right now, for too many senior citizens and Americans with disabilities, driving isn't an option. Automated vehicles could change their lives." Older folks aren't exactly known for embracing new technology, but self-driving vehicles just might be an exception to the rule. Dutch police train eagles to attack drones, but here's why it won't happen in the US Police eagles are just as awesome as they sound, but are they really a practical solution for drone defense?

In the last two days of September, California transportation authorities made some noteworthy changes to their self-driving vehicle policy. First, on September 29, a new bill was signed into law that allows fully autonomous to be tested in a pilot project in two specific locations. The next day, California lawmakers also released revised draft regulations that would allow for cars with no driver on a broader scale. The technical leader of Ford's autonomous car project speaks about what it's like to be driven by a driver-less car, and how big a deal self-driving vehicles will really be. California has been a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, both with technical development and in regards to government.

One is overly credulous scare-mongering. But the other extreme is equally dangerous--complacency that we can overlook these issues now, because humanity-threatening AI is decades or more away. Whether it is down to scare-mongering or complacency, serious debates about the role of government, regulatory bodies and courts in regulating AI have been lacking. There are a number of possible explanations for this: the so-called'legal lag problem' where law is seen as invariably playing catch-up to rapid technological advances; the apparent anti-government libertarian bent of Silicon Valley; and the possibility that AI might elude traditional regulatory regimes. Like nuclear power and genetic research, AI is a classic risk/reward technology.

The Volkswagen I.D. concept car made a splash at the Paris Motor Show a few days ago, but in addition to real world images of the sleek automobile, the company also released a sci-fi-style short featuring the vehicle in action. At the beginning of the video, a woman meets the self-driving car in front of her building and it dutifully opens its door for her. Clothed in Mad Max-light fare, the woman then takes the wheel and hits the road, framed by the spacecraft-like LEDs framing the car's chassis. Later, once she's well underway, she hits the steering wheel logo, which causes the steering wheel to recede into the dashboard as the car takes over the driving, allowing her to sit back and read the messages being displayed on her windshield. It's an increasingly familiar vision of our automotive future shown in yet another well-designed concept car video.

Increased investor interest in AI startups – from around 10 deals in Q1'11 to over 120 in Q2'16 – can be attributed to recent advances in machine learning algorithms, particularly "deep learning" technology, a souped up version of AI. Just this week, Google integrated deep learning into its Google Translate tool; Baidu announced the launch of DeepBench, an "open source benchmarking tool for evaluating deep learning performance across different hardware platforms"; and NVIDIA introduced Xavier, a deep learning-based supercomputer for driverless cars. In the private market, Google put deep learning in the spotlight back in 2014 when it acquired 4 startups focused on this AI tech in quick succession: DeepMind, Vision Factory, Dark Blue Labs, and DNNresearch. Apple, which joined the race in 2015, most recently acquired Turi, which has developed a deep learning toolkit, among other AI-based solutions. Not to be outdone, Intel has acquired more than 5 AI startups this year alone, including deep learning startup Nervana Systems and, more recently, Movidius.

Humans have been here before--at least three times before, in fact. At first, it was steam and water power; then came electricity and mass production; and then IT and computerization. Each time, Joseph Schumpeter's "gale of creative destruction" blustered as rapid advances in technology destroyed some jobs, paved the way for new lines of work, and ultimately provided enhanced productivity and lifestyles for the majority. Researchers predict that over the next decade or so, emerging technological breakthroughs will once again fundamentally alter jobs and manufacturing processes around the world--but this time, the consequences could be drastically different. There is little debate that robots are coming for our jobs.