The possibility that a malevolent artificial intelligence might pose a serious threat to humankind has become a hotly debated issue. Various high profile individuals from the physicist Stephen Hawking to the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk have warned of the danger. Which is why the field of artificial intelligence safety is emerging as an important discipline. Computer scientists have begun to analyze the unintended consequences of poorly designed AI systems, of AI systems created with faulty ethical frameworks or ones that do not share human values. But there's an important omission in this field, say independent researchers Federico Pistono and Roman Yampolskiy from the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "Nothing, to our knowledge, has been published on how to design a malevolent machine," they say.

There is a major power shift in and around corporations that potentially gives consumers and shareholders more control over organizations than they had in the past, according to Jose Luis Prado, president, Prado Strategic Consulting LLC, who also serves on several corporate boards. Mr. Prado discusses how "shared control" of organizations can create challenges related to communications, reputation and risk-taking, as well as how corporate directors can effectively respond to these challenges.

Jefferson Graham visits the Google "Sandbox" at the I/O developer's conference, where futuristic, new technologies are on display. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - The Google I/O conference brings developers--the folks who make apps for phones, computers, TVs and the like--together for a status update on all that Google is up to. The hope is that they'll start creating apps for new technologies being touted. So we spent time at the I/O conference talking to developers about what excites them about Google's future. Google demonstrated a new way of mapping, using a tablet to monitor the insides of buildings, at its Sandbox area of I/O, devoted to the newest technologies being introduced, and the exhibit easily drew the longest lines and biggest crowds.

Google is launching a messaging app, and it's going to start butting into your conversations. Allo, as the app has been named, was unveiled at the opening event of the company's I/O developer conference in San Francisco. It works similarly to most other messaging apps, but also has a built-in AI assistant. Google's assistant scans your incoming messages, so it can suggest good responses. It can do this for regular texts or picture messages, and seemed impressively smart in on-stage demonstrations.

The popular machine learning projects, in general, are popular because they either provide a wide range of needed services or they were the first (or possibly best) to provide a particular niche service to users. These popular projects include Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Theano, MXNet (maybe?), Weka (formerly), and so on. Depending on the particular ecosystem(s) you work in, and on your machine learning goals, the projects which you consider popular may differ slightly; however, they all share the similarity that they provide services to a large base of users. But there are all sorts of smaller machine learning projects out there that people are building and using: pipelines, wrappers, high-level APIs, cleaners, etc. They provide both niche and flexible services, usually for smaller numbers of users, for all sorts of reasons.

Artificial intelligence and robots could deprive 7.35 million people of their jobs by fiscal 2030 if Japan fails at this pivotal time to structurally reform the labor market, the economy ministry said. The estimated job losses were included in the ministry's survey on the impact on labor of the "fourth industrial revolution," said to be driven by AI and big data. If nothing is done to adjust to the changes, employment for all job types, except certain low-wage work, will decrease, and the number of employees will drop by more than 10 percent in fiscal 2030 from fiscal 2015, according to the preliminary calculation. The survey says if structural reforms are implemented, employment opportunities would be created in some sectors, and the number of job losses would shrink to 1.61 million from 7.35 million. The survey results were presented at an April 27 meeting of an expert committee discussing how to respond to the spread of AI, the Internet of Things (IoT) and robots.

Maybe the reason why Google isn't giving a formal name to its personal assistant software is that it's more than just one thing. Introduced at I/O this week is a new Android Awareness API that bundles all the sensor data from your smartphone or other Android device and presents it to apps, which can then act on that input to automatically assist you. "You can use this information to build more assistive and aware applications," says Google's Bhavik Singh, product manager of the Awareness API. He offers a number of scenarios where smart assistive apps could help: projecting the day's weather forecast on the nearest Chromecast TV, beaming out traffic alerts to your Google Home speaker to avoid being late for a meeting, or tagging photos with weather and activity data as well as location. In order to be so savvy, however, apps will need access to seven different parameters: the time and place (both type of place and precise location), your physical activity, any nearby wireless beacons, whether or not you have headphones connected, and the weather.

With much of what Google announced during the first day of its I/O developer conference focused on helping users answer questions before they even think of them, artificial intelligence is proving critical for the company's strategy. "Google is betting the farm on artificial intelligence (A.I.) and they need to because Microsoft and Facebook aren't too far behind," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. "A.I. will determine the next-generation experience with all electronics. It essentially predicts what users want before they know they do. A.I. is the next big frontier, and Google has always been a pioneer in A.I." During the keynote speech on Wednesday, the company unveiled several upcoming products, including its Google Assistant, Google Home device, the Allo chat app and the Duo video chat app.

Google has revealed a new personal assistant for around the house that can control, run and organise your entire home using just your voice. The device, a voice-activated speaker called Google Home forms the centre of a Google plan to use artificial intelligence in computing to help give every user "their own individual Google" by becoming personal to them, according to the firm's chief. CEO Sundar Pichai used the keynote presentation at the firm's I/O developer conference in California to reveal new apps, software and a voice activated personal assistant that take advantage of new, more intelligent Google software that is better at understanding context. Mr Pichai said of the new Google Home personal assistant connects to WiFi and can control other connected appliances: "Computing is poised to evolve beyond just phones. It will be about the context. The new, more intelligent software also focuses on understanding context to answer queries and has been built into the existing Google ...

Later this morning, Sundar Pichai will take the stage in Mountain View for his first I/O developer conference as CEO of Google. And he will reiterate many of the points he laid out in his first founders' letter -- that Google believes artificial intelligence is the next foundational platform in tech, after mobile, and that Google is well positioned to win. He and his executive underlings will also have announcements to share. We are moving to a world where smart, interactive machines surround us -- our homes, cars, offices and (of course) phones. Google wants to be there; that's Google's bread and butter.