Professor Stephen Hawking on Wednesday opened a new artificial intelligence research centre at Britain's Cambridge University. Funded by a 10 million (11.2 million-euro, 12.3-million) grant from the Leverhulme Trust, the centre's express aim is to ensure AI is used to benefit humanity. Opening the new centre, Hawking said it was not possible to predict what might be achieved with AI. "Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one--industrialisation. "And surely we will aim to finally eradicate disease and poverty. Every aspect of our lives will be transformed.

A Tokyo-based nonprofit organization will begin offering online Japanese-language classes this month to children from abroad who need help to keep up in class at Japanese elementary and junior high schools. Youth Support Center's YSC Global School in Fussa, western Tokyo, is set to offer instruction provided by language education experts via personal computers or tablets to young foreign nationals living anywhere in Japan. The NPO will cooperate with municipalities and schools without sufficient resources to teach Japanese to such children. Yuran Nakajima, 16, watched a lecture on a PC monitor at YSC's office in Fussa during a trial session in September. Three other students sat in the classroom elsewhere in the city, where the lesson was being taught.

IBM's virtual health care assistant powered by Watson, which has memorized most of the world's medical journals and texts, is an example of this. Enterprise is already feeling the impact of AI assistants like IBM's Watson health care tool, but Gartner says these systems will become more "conversational." Powered by machine learning and AI, such systems will learn how to adapt to humans and vice versa. Gartner believes five major focal points will enable the new capabilities and business models of digital business, including information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence, the IoT, and business ecosystems.

Leave it to Zuck to strut out at F8 and make the announcement about chatbots: They're happening. As a major component of Facebook's new Messenger Platform, chatbots will enable businesses to develop a personalized layer of communication and commerce with their customers. Facebook's is just the latest, and biggest, play in the world of chatbots. Slack and Kik have been here for awhile, but Facebook's arrival signals inevitability. As one of the first platforms to launch bots about 18 months ago, Kik has been working with developers and product managers to figure out what makes for a successful chatbot.

A diverse range of exciting technology is currently being displayed in Tokyo for Japan Robot Week, an annual event that offers a glimpse into the gadgets of the future. Held in the East Hall of Tokyo Big Sight, the event showcases a range of robots designed for different activities and uses, primarily focusing on service robotics. It features exhibitions from 193 companies and organisations, with 465 booths. As well as that, this year features the seventh Robot Awards ceremony and exhibition, joint displays from universities and laboratories, and a range of programs and talks related to furthering the field of study. Intriguing technologies showcased at this year's exhibition include a range of humanoid robots designed to assist in domestic and commercial tasks, robotic cats and dogs, powered suits, trousers and backpacks with innovative technology and a range of communication robots. One of the robots exhibited at the show is Paro, the robotic seal designed as a therapeutic assistant to help at nursing homes or hospitals where real animals are not allowed.

It's no secret that I love technology. From the domination of mobile to the latest in recruitment tools and gamification, and how video and live streaming is having an impact on hiring and training--changes are afoot that many of us couldn't have imagined 15 or so years ago. The reason this "tech meets HR" marriage is so exciting is how quickly the technology evolution has disrupted HR and enhanced the way HR professionals get things done. Now there's another big disrupter on the horizon, one that you would be wise to keep your eyes on: Artificial intelligence. In layman's terms, artificial intelligence (or AI) is an area of computer science where computers are "developed" to behave much the way humans do.

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It's in your smart phone, your car, and it has the run of your house. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls our transportation, energy, and water infrastructure. Artificial Intelligence is for the 21st century what electricity was for the 20th and steam power for the 19th. The Hollywood cliché that artificial intelligence will take over the world could soon become scientific reality as AI matches then surpasses human intelligence.

When it comes to robots replacing humans, we might think we have the upper hand since we're the ones who build and program them but that's not neccesarily the case anymore. Google is taking a different approach to training its robots – it's letting them teach each other. Researchers at Google have released a report showing how they connected 14 robotic arms together and used convolutional neural networks to let them teach themselves how to pick things up. The approach mimics how young children learn between the ages of one and four years old, and is essentially helping the robots to develop reliable hand-eye coordination. Typically, a robot would be programmed to carry out specific tasks, but this method shows how they can learn through trial-and-error in combination with a neural network – the same way a child learns how to do something by watching other people.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to eradicate poverty and disease or hasten the end of human civilisation as we know it, celebrated scientist Stephen Hawking told an audience in Cambridge on Wednesday evening. Speaking at the launch of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), Hawking said the rise of AI would transform every aspect of our lives and amounted to a global event at a par with the industrial revolution. CFI brings together four of the world's leading universities – Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley and Imperial College, London – to explore the implications of AI for human civilisation. Hawking said: "Success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation. But it could also be the last – unless we learn how to avoid the risks. Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers like powerful autonomous weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many. "We cannot predict what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI.

As we continue through the OODA loop, we arrive at the Orient step. For a quick review of the OODA loop (see "What the heck is an OODA Loop?") The previous step was "Observe" where the intelligent agent (human or otherwise) learns what the things are in the world around the system that can influence the choices for appropriate behavior. So, having completed the Observe step, our agent knows what it has around it and it can start to explore what the impact of those things will be. As an example, think of an artificial intelligence that is trying to increase the ad revenue on a web site.