DUBAI // Despite rapid transformations in the way humans live, the future should be embraced and not feared, said Gerd Leonhard, author and self-described futurist. Through emerging technologies such as cloud computing and "the Internet of Things", in the next five years Mr Leonhard said 75 per cent of "the whole world" will be connected. "There's many great things about this, and there's many challenges about this," he said. "There are predictions saying that 80 per cent of the military budget in 10 years will be spent on data cloud, cyber issues. "Our world is going to change more in the next 20 years than the previous 300 years." This week, he addressed attendees at the SubOptic 2016 conference -- an event for the submarine fibre-optic cable industry -- and touched upon issues that will affect the entire internet's infrastructure, such as bandwidth and access. Mr Leonhard, a Swiss national and native German speaker, recounted an experience in Japan earlier this month where he used a mobile app to talk about fish with a Japanese-speaking sushi chef for 30 minutes. What made his conversation possible, and what will be central to the continuing change he describes, is connectivity and the role of the internet in nearly every aspect of our daily lives, he said. Language translation, as he illustrated through his sushi restaurant anecdote, as well as things such as artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, are all emerging technologies being built around connectivity. Due to interconnectivity and associated technologies, by 2030, he said roughly 40 to 60 per cent of all jobs will be completed by machines. Areas such as finance, real estate, medicine, energy and food are still to be "disrupted" in the way other industries, such as media, telecommunications and transportation, have in recent years, he said. Associated challenges that will continue to emerge will revolve around ethics, establishing limits on how humans approach issues such as artificial intelligence and human genome editing, capabilities and control over the internet's infrastructure and cyber security. "Watching the media or watching movies about the future, there's always one thing that comes up - that we're all going to die because the robots will take over the world.

Dr Ben Azvine is responsible for BT's security innovation strategy and helped to lay the groundwork for BT's award winning new capability, BT Assure Analytics. In this interview, Ben explains how the cyber threat landscape is evolving and how new developments in technology – especially Artificial Intelligence – will help us address the threats of tomorrow. Tell us a little about your background and current role at BT. Ben Azvine: As Global Head of Security Innovation at BT my role is to look 2-5 years into the future and prepare for the coming challenges. I think it is the best time in the history of technology to be involved in security because it is such a dynamic area. Security is not just a technology issue; it is also a business and board-level issue. I would say that cyber security is currently one of the top 3 priorities for business and hence we receive a lot of support from top management to accelerate technology in this field.

Dr. Harari, an Israeli professor of history and author of "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," made the remarks during the "Daji," China's TED-like talk show, initiated by the CITIC Publishing Group during this year's World Reading Day. The Israeli historian began this argument while citing the historic five-game match between World Go Champion Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, Google's computer program, which brought worldwide attention to the power of artificial intelligence. He forecasted that we may witness AI's emergence and domination in the decades to come. "It (AlphaGo) has no conscious or feelings; when it played, it did not feel anxious and while it won, it did not feel joy," said Dr. Harari who is frightened by a situation in which intelligence and consciousness may separate with AI conquering the world. He cited driving as an example, saying that as companies like Google and Tesla all developing AI that can outperform humans in operating vehicles, people may finally free themselves from these actions as the computer programs drive more efficiently, safely and cheaply in a highly-connected system of artificial intelligence that renders accidents and traffic jams a thing of the past.

Dr. Harari, an Israeli professor of history and author of "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," made the remarks during the "Daji," China's TED-like talk show, initiated by the CITIC Publishing Group during this year's World Reading Day. The Israeli historian began this argument while citing the historic five-game match between World Go Champion Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, Google's computer program, which brought worldwide attention to the power of artificial intelligence. He forecasted that we may witness AI's emergence and domination in the decades to come. "It (AlphaGo) has no conscious or feelings; when it played, it did not feel anxious and while it won, it did not feel joy," said Dr. Harari who is frightened by a situation in which intelligence and consciousness may separate with AI conquering the world. He cited driving as an example, saying that as companies like Google and Tesla all developing AI that can outperform humans in operating vehicles, people may finally free themselves from these actions as the computer programs drive more efficiently, safely and cheaply in a highly-connected system of artificial intelligence that renders accidents and traffic jams a thing of the past.

It appears not many people are into investment in Japan. As of last December, only about 16 percent of Japan's 1.7 quadrillion in personal financial assets was held in stocks, investment trusts or bonds. This is partly due to a general belief that investments are for the affluent or those with financial expertise. Others, meanwhile, just don't want to take the risk. But a new service known as robo-advisers might change this trend, allowing people to dive into investments more easily.

These are external obstacles whereby the educator places blame for resisting change or engaging in a growth mindset outside of one's own responsibility. The result is a fixed mindset of learned helplessness, "I cannot change because the system won't let me change." Sometimes educators are creating some obstacles for themselves that in reality don't exist.

There have been a lot of conversations about bots recently, ranging from where they should originate to what they should do. Bots have been called the dawn of a new form of commerce and BuddyScript 2.0 (look it up if you don't remember AOL). Bots will revolutionize the way we do business. Bots might even make your jam sandwich (see above for a demonstration). When considering the progress of automated helpers -- and specifically thinking about the kind of help we are likely to get while using messaging protocols -- maybe a jam sandwich maker is a stretch (for now). It is helpful, though, to think of the promise offered by a Bot in making some conversations and commerce much more efficient, effective, and enjoyable.

Unless you've had your head buried in sand for the past 20 years, you will have been exposed to at least one, if not all, of the Terminator films. The stories of the evil Cyberdyne Systems and the rise of Skynet, along with more recent films including Transcendence, Ex Machina and Chappy, have brought ideas around artificial intelligence to life, for better or worse. But just how long is it before reality catches up with fiction? In fact, the scary part is that we might already be there. And by the end of this year, there'll be no way we can avoid it. The most obvious use of AI and similar technologies is in voice assistants such as Siri and Google Now.

This article is an effort to make you into a "semi-expert" in artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, deep learning and neural networks from scratch. Here I will share a few cool learning resources for these topics. These resources include documentaries, TED talks, online lecture videos, and books. There are several videos and online books included in this post to help you learn these concepts. These resources vary from introductory to advanced learning.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences welcomes Carnegie Mellon's Tom Mitchell On Wednesday, April 20, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) announced its 2016 member class, which included Tom Mitchell, a member of Carnegie Mellon's Machine Learning Department. Mitchell has been with Carnegie Mellon since 1986 and was named Fredkin University Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Mitchell also served for 10 years as the founding head of the Machine Learning Department. His research focuses on learning algorithms, with particular interest in analyzing MRIs to model brain cognition. In addition to his new membership in the AAAS, he has also been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and served for two years as President of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.