Prominent voices of the tech world assume: not only AI might pose a threat to humanity, it also is racist and sexist. Since the AI machines learn from real people, they are very likely to adopt the same behavioral patterns, which may further be spreading inequality in the workplace, at home and in our legal and judicial systems. Take a small example from last year: Users discovered that Google's photo app, which applies automatic labels to pictures in digital photo albums, was classifying images of black people as gorillas. Google apologized; it was unintentional. It is mainly a data problem.

I consider Ray Kurzweil a very close friend and a very smart person. Ray is a brilliant technologist, futurist, and a director of engineering at Google focused on AI and language processing. As reported, "of the 147 predictions that Kurzweil has made since the 1990s, fully 115 of them have turned out to be correct, and another 12 have turned out to be "essentially correct" (off by a year or two), giving his predictions a stunning 86% accuracy rate." Two weeks ago, Ray and I held an hour-long webinar with my Abundance 360 CEOs about predicting the future. During our session, there was one of Ray's specific predictions that really blew my mind. "In the 2030s," said Ray, "we are going to send nano-robots into the brain (via capillaries) that will provide full immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system and will connect our neocortex to the cloud. Just like how we can wirelessly expand the power of our smartphones 10,000-fold in the cloud today, we'll be able to expand our ...

The future of legal research assistance lawyers is zero. The job will soon vanish for all practical purposes. Futurism reports "Ross, the world's first artificially intelligent attorney, has its first official law firm. Baker & Hostetler announced that they will be employing Ross for its bankruptcy practice, currently comprised of almost 50 lawyers." Please consider Artificially Intelligent Lawyer "Ross" Has Been Hired By Its First Official Law Firm.

Better, faster, more productive... these used to be words to describe what we wanted from our internet broadband connection. Now they describe what we expect not only from all our products and services but also from each other. The expectations that we have from the world and the world has from us are dynamic, ever-changing and transforming at speed. AI is all around us. Complicated and repetitive tasks are better performed by computer algorithms and mechanisms than by the human mind.

A clash between robots and workers is unlikely. Rather, disruptive technology can make workers more efficient without replacing them, and raise profits, while maintaining or increasing a company's workforce. Disruptive innovation, if not well-managed and regulated, can have a negative impact on jobs and working conditions. The digital economy and the shifts it causes are moving at a fast pace across all sectors. It bears both opportunities for productivity and well-being, and risks for certain job profiles, specifically routine heavy tasks.

Last week MPs warned that the UK is facing a digital skills crisis. Its report explained that 90% of jobs require digital skills to some degree, but flagged that the UK needs another 745,000 workers with digital skills by 2017 in order to remain competitive against other countries. At the moment the skills gap is reportedly costing the UK around 63bn a year. In tandem, we are seeing more companies invest in automation and artificial intelligence (AI), which reduces the need for humans in the decision making process. For example, Twitter recently announced the acquisition of machine learning startup, Magic Pony Technology.

But this hand-wringing is a distraction from the very real problems with artificial intelligence today, which may already be exacerbating inequality in the workplace, at home and in our legal and judicial systems. Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many "intelligent" systems that shape how we are categorized and advertised to. Take a small example from last year: Users discovered that Google's photo app, which applies automatic labels to pictures in digital photo albums, was classifying images of black people as gorillas. Google apologized; it was unintentional. This is fundamentally a data problem.

According to some prominent voices in the tech world, artificial intelligence presents a looming existential threat to humanity: Warnings by luminaries like Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom about "the singularity" - when machines become smarter than humans - have attracted millions of dollars and spawned a multitude of conferences. But this hand-wringing is a distraction from the very real problems with artificial intelligence today, which may already be exacerbating inequality in the workplace, at home and in our legal and judicial systems. Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many "intelligent" systems that shape how we are categorised and advertised to. Take a small example from last year: Users discovered that Google's photo app, which applies automatic labels to pictures in digital photo albums, was classifying images of black people as gorillas. Google apologized; it was unintentional.

NEW YORK: According to some prominent voices in the tech world, artificial intelligence presents a looming existential threat to humanity: Warnings by luminaries like Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom about "the singularity" -- when machines become smarter than humans -- have attracted millions of dollars and spawned a multitude of conferences. But this hand-wringing is a distraction from the very real problems with artificial intelligence today, which may already be exacerbating inequality in the workplace, at home and in our legal and judicial systems. Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many "intelligent" systems that shape how we are categorised and advertised to. Take a small example from last year: Users discovered that Google's photo app, which applies automatic labels to pictures in digital photo albums, was classifying images of black people as gorillas. Google apologized; it was unintentional.

BEIJING – China has issued new regulations demanding that search engines clearly identify paid search results, months after a terminally ill cancer patient complained that he was misled by the giant search engine Baidu. Wei Zexi, a college student who died in April of a rare cancer, had written a long post on a Chinese website detailing how he was led to a Beijing hospital for treatments after searching on Baidu. He said that the treatment turned out to be ineffective and expensive and that later he learned the therapy was yet to be fully approved. Wei accused Baidu of taking money to promote less proven treatments. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced on its website Saturday the new regulations, which also ban search engines from showing subversive content and obscene information.