The buzzwords "Industry 4.0" and "digital business" represent the start of a complex transformational process that will deeply affect industry and society during the next decade. This transformation is based on the convergence of the real (analog) world and the virtual (digital) world by means of machineto- machine (M2M) communication, autonomous systems (for example, robotics) and the Internet of Things (IoT). The German government uses the term "Industry 4.0" as the title of a government project promoting the computerization of traditional industries and the creation of intelligent factories (smart factories) that will be supported by cyberphysical systems and the IoT. The digits "4.0" in Industry 4.0 stand for the fourth industrial revolution: the transition of production from digital processing to fully interconnected processes, products and services. It follows the evolution of production processes for tradable goods from manufacturing to industry production (the first revolution), the move from steam-driven machine production to electricity-driven production (the second revolution) and the shift from analog processing to digital processing and microelectronics (the third revolution). One of the major features of Industry 4.0 is the ability of machines and devices to communicate with each other without a human interface.

As data scientists, we are aware that bias exists in the world. We read up on stories about how cognitive biases can affect decision-making. We know that, for instance, a resume with a white-sounding name will receive a different response than the same resume with a black-sounding name, and that writers of performance reviews use different language to describe contributions by women and men in the workplace. We read stories in the news about ageism in healthcare and racism in mortgage lending. Data scientists are problem solvers at heart, and we love our data and our algorithms that sometimes seem to work like magic, so we may be inclined to try to solve these problems stemming from human bias by turning the decisions over to machines.

Axiom, a legal staffing-turned-technology company, recently announced a five-year deal with Johnson & Johnson (J & J) to provide multi-shore contract management services to the pharmaceutical giant. Axiom will support J&J's global procurement contracting function, helping to standardize its vast trove of procurement agreements across a dozen contract types and 10 languages. This is not Axiom's lone big dollar, long-term contract with a major corporation. A couple years ago, it inked an eye-popping $73 million deal with Credit Suisse to process the bank's "master trading agreements." Axiom's metamorphosis from staffing to technology is emblematic of the maturing face and changing focus of legal service providers.

A bereaved family is suing Apple after the death of their young daughter, who died in a car crash allegedly caused by a driver who was using FaceTime behind the wheel. The family said the tech giant should have implemented software it patented in 2008 which would have prevented the app being used by a driver. Five-year-old Moriah Modisette was travelling in the back of her parent's car near Dallas in 2014 when it was hit at 65 mph by Garrett Willhelm, 22, who was using the Apple app while driving, police said. She later died of her injuries and her parents, James and Bethany Modisette, and sister, Isabella, eight, were also hurt. Officers at the scene found the FaceTime app still running after the crash.

The most straightforward fix would be to amend a federal law that prohibits the sale of most organs, which could allow for development of a limited organ market. Organ sales have been banned in the United States since 1984, when Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act after a spike in demand (thanks to the introduction of the immunosuppressant cyclosporine, which improved transplant survival rates from 20–30 percent to 60–70 percent) raised concerns that people's vital appendages might be "treated like fenders in an auto junkyard." Others feared an organ market would exploit minorities and those living in poverty. But the ban hasn't completely protected those populations, either. The current system hasn't stopped organ harvesting--the illegal removal of organs from the recently deceased without the consent of the person or family--either in the United States or abroad.

Earlier this month, researchers claimed to have found evidence that criminality can be predicted from facial features. In "Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images," Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang describe how they trained classifiers using various machine learning techniques that were able to distinguish photos of criminals from photos of non-criminals with a high level of accuracy. The result these researchers found can be interpreted differently depending on what assumptions you bring to interpreting it, and what question you're interested in answering. The authors simply assume there's no bias in the criminal justice system, and thus that the criminals they have photos of are a representative sample of the criminals in the wider population (including those who have never been caught or convicted for their crimes). The question they're interested in is whether there's a correlation between facial features and criminality.

If artificial intelligence takes over our lives, it probably won't involve humans battling an army of robots that relentlessly apply Spock-like logic as they physically enslave us. Instead, the machine-learning algorithms that already let AI programs recommend a movie you'd like or recognize your friend's face in a photo will likely be the same ones that one day deny you a loan, lead the police to your neighborhood or tell your doctor you need to go on a diet. And since humans create these algorithms, they're just as prone to biases that could lead to bad decisions--and worse outcomes. These biases create some immediate concerns about our increasing reliance on artificially intelligent technology, as any AI system designed by humans to be absolutely "neutral" could still reinforce humans' prejudicial thinking instead of seeing through it. Law enforcement officials have already been criticized, for example, for using computer algorithms that allegedly tag black defendants as more likely to commit a future crime, even though the program was not designed to explicitly consider race.

Working in the field of big data and AI means that I see the leading edge advances that come with it. It also means routinely getting freaked out when you think too closely about the possibilities and implications of those advances and where they might be taking us. Manufacturing are the first places we see robots and automation eliminating human jobs, but it's hard to think of an industry that will be left unaffected as robots and AI become more affordable and widespread. It's estimated that between 35 and 50 percent of jobs that exist today are at risk of being lost to automation. Repetitive, blue collar type jobs might be first, but even professionals -- including paralegals, diagnosticians, and customer service representatives -- will be at risk.

Besides government regulations, bad weather, weight restrictions, and all the other issues that plague Amazon's budding drone delivery service, the company must also face the prospect of thieves shooting down drones to steal their packages. It's a problem that Amazon has been working on since at least 2014, when it filed a patent for "countermeasures" to protect drones against everything from gunshots to hackers breaching its navigation software. The patent was approved last week, GeekWire reported, offering insight into how Amazon intends to safeguard drone-borne packages of the future. The patent describes two main lines of defense for the drones. The first are electronic systems designed to detect signal jammers or other hacking attempts, including a backup communications interface if the primary one is compromised.

Amazon is exploring the use of giant airships to serve as mobile, flying warehouses that could help the online retail giant deliver more of its goods by drone. You might already be familiar with Amazon's drone delivery service, which recently received a demo in Britain for the first time. But the idea for a fleet of large airships, disclosed in filings to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, expand on those ambitions dramatically. Imagine you're at a baseball game and wanted to buy a meal or a jersey without ever leaving your seat. The system Amazon describes would allow you to place an order and receive the item within minutes.