Artificial Intelligence is something that's been on the horizon for a long time – probably as long as anyone reading this will be able to remember. Since its emergence into the public consciousness through science fiction, we have understood with certainty that one day machines will have "intelligence", and considered the ethical and philosophical implications. AI is one of the biggest buzzwords in tech, and fundamental to most predictions how IT will enable change and growth in coming years. Everything is now "smart", we are consistently told – and doom mongers (including some very smart people!) are predicting that we are rushing headlong towards calamity. But is this all marketing hype?

Alphabet Jigsaw (formerly Google Ideas) officially unveiled this morning their new tool for fighting toxic speech online, appropriately called Perspective. Powered by a deep learning model trained on more than 17 million manually reviewed reader comments provided by the New York Times, the model assigns a score to a given passage of text, rating it on a scale from 0 to 100% similar to statements that human reviewers have previously rated as "toxic." What makes this new approach from Google so different than past approaches is that it largely focuses on language rather than ideas: for the most part you can express your thoughts freely and without fear of censorship as long as you express them clinically and clearly, while if you resort to emotional diatribes and name calling, regardless of what you talk about, you will be flagged. What does this tell us about the future of toxic speech online and the notion of machines guiding humans to a more "perfect" humanity? One of the great challenges in filtering out "toxic" speech online is first defining what precisely counts as "toxic" and then determining how to remove such speech without infringing on people's ability to freely express their ideas.

An Amazon Echo device is displayed at the Ford booth at CES 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 5, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Amazon is sticking to its guns in the fight to protect customer data. The tech titan has filed a motion to quash the search warrant for recordings from an Amazon Echo in the trial of James Andrew Bates, accused of murdering friend Victor Collins in Bentonville, Arkansas in November 2015. And it's arguing that the responses of Alexa, the voice of the Echo, has First Amendment rights as part of that motion. The case first came to light in December, when it emerged Amazon was contesting an order to provide audio from the Echo device, during the 48-hour period from November 21 through 22 2015, alongside subscriber and account information.

Amazon has argued that the voice of Alexa, the artificial intelligence assistant used in its range of Echo speakers, has First Amendment rights. The company is fighting an order to hand over recordings from an Amazon Echo used by James Andrew Bates, who is on trial for allegedly murdering his friend Victor Collins in Arkansas in November 2015. Amazon has filed a 90-page document, which is available to read on Forbes, contesting the warrant demanding the audio covering the 48-hour period from 21-22 November 2015. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a ...

Many people worry that robots will replace human jobs, but Bill Gates has a solution: a robot tax. As robots begin to infiltrate the workforce, why shouldn't they be taxed just as humans are? In a recent interview with Quartz, Gates argued that in order to offset job losses due to automation, governments should tax companies that use robots. "Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed, and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things," Gates said. "If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think that we'd tax the robot at a similar level."

With no federal regulations for self-driving cars in place, states are assuming responsibility for ensuring the benefits of the technology can be reaped without sacrificing safety. Federal regulators provided safety guidance to states and automakers last year, but stopped short of issuing binding rules. Key members of Congress say they also are exploring legislation. Eight states have self-driving car laws, and bills have been introduced in 20 states this year, according to tracking by Volvo.

MEMPHIS -- Amid the confusion and pandemonium that would follow a major earthquake, Memphis-area emergency-response officials plan to deploy drones to check for collapsed buildings and bridges, locate fires and guide rescue crews. Toward that end, the Central United States Earthquake Consortium, a Memphis-based agency charged with helping prepare an eight-state region for temblors on the New Madrid Seismic Zone, has begun developing a network of licensed drone pilots to aid in quake-response efforts. This week, CUSEC will convene an initial meeting of prospective participants. "We're going to use their insights into determining how to build this (network)," said Jim Wilkinson, executive director of CUSEC. The use of drones following disasters is not new.

Ridley Scott is returning to his "Alien" franchise, but don't fret, the first clip from the new feature film "Alien: Covenant" leaves "Prometheus" far behind. The first clip from the latest installment in the long-running franchise brings back Michael Fassbender as (what we're presuming) is David the android (but now with the new name "Walter"). However, everyone else in this "Prologue" titled clip appears to be brand new to the horror series. Big names like James Franco, Danny McBride, Billy Crudup and Katherine Waterston have all signed aboard to be a member of Scott's new (and presumably doomed) crew. But despite the new faces, the clip itself feels much more reminiscent of the 1979 original film, "Alien."

Women have been made into servants once again. Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google's Google Home peddle stereotypes of female subservience--which puts their "progressive" parent companies in a moral predicament. People often comment on the sexism inherent in these subservient bots' female voices, but few have considered the real-life implications of the devices' lackluster responses to sexual harassment. By letting users verbally abuse these assistants without ramifications, their parent companies are allowing certain behavioral stereotypes to be perpetuated. Everyone has an ethical imperative to help prevent abuse, but companies producing digital female servants warrant extra scrutiny, especially if they can unintentionally reinforce their abusers' actions as normal or acceptable. In order to substantiate claims about these bots' responses to sexual harassment and the ethical implications of their pre-programmed responses, Quartz gathered comprehensive data on their programming by systematically testing how each reacts to harassment. The message is clear: Instead of fighting back against abuse, each bot helps entrench sexist tropes through their passivity. And Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have the responsibility to do something about it.

In January, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament put forward a draft report urging the creation and adoption of EU-wide rules to corral the myriad issues arising from the widespread use of robots and AI--a development, it says, is "poised to unleash a new industrial revolution." It's an interesting read, and a valiant effort to get a handle on how to standardize and regulate the ever-expanding robot universe: drones, industrial robots, care robots, medical robots, entertainment robots, robots in farming--you name it, they're all in there. Beginning with Frankenstein's monster, Prague's golem, and Karel Čapek's robot and ending with a code of ethics for robotics engineers and some daunting lists of "shoulds" for robot designers and end users, the 22-page worry catalog toggles between practical concerns about liability, accountability, and safety--who's going to pay when a robot or a self-driving car has an accident?--and The practical concerns addressed include a call for the creation of a European agency for robotics and artificial intelligence to support the European Commission in its regulation- and legislation-making efforts. Definitions and classifications of robots and smart robots need to be detailed, and a robot registration system described.