Human-robot strike teams, autonomous land mines, and covert swarms of minuscule robotic spies: the US Department of Defense's idea of the future of war seems like a sci-fi movie. According to Engadget, it took a while for the U.S. military to perfect its defense strategies against cyberattacks and it seems that when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), U.S. military faces a similar deficit. Other countries, especially U.S. rivals such as China and Russia, implement less restrictive policies that deal with killer robots and other lethal AI autonomous weapons. This is one of the reasons U.S. cannot afford to be left behind. The nation's military may need deadly AI technology before it's too late.

Technological revolutions have long animated economic history. The concept of "creative destruction"--in which technological advancement destroys certain sectors of the economy while giving rise to new ones--has roots in some of the earliest economic thought.1 This process hinges on the idea that machines serve to supplement human labor, primarily labor dedicated to repetitive physical and cognitive tasks. At the moment, machines can solve intensive well-defined tasks but for the most part cannot be expected to define problems nor identify and traverse particularly complex systems without human oversight. Robots: A Retrospective The most primitive economies are essentially brawn-based. Human labor is largely priced by the ability to perform physical tasks associated with farming and building. A number of studies (e.g., Thomas and Strauss, 1997) show how in modern-day less-developed economies, men make more than woman as a function of body mass and thus perceived brawn, and that men with more brawn made more than those with less.

Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business section. Pharmaceutical company Mylan is still in the news after hiking the price of life-saving EpiPens by more than 400%. But keep this in mind: Of roughly 250 million raised for and against 17 ballot measures coming before California voters in November, more than a quarter of that amount -- about 70 million -- has been contributed by deep-pocketed drug companies to defeat the Drug Price Relief Act, which would limit drug prices charged to state healthcare programs. Spending on the measure could set a state record over coming weeks. No buzz kill: New federal rules for small commercial drones go into effect Monday.

America's space agency is entering the second phase of a four-step plan to draw up rules for small drones that fly under 500 feet. The NASA project is meant to develop performance standards for drones that would be used for commercial purposes by companies such as Amazon and Google. The system will be designed to help drone operators deal with weather conditions, restricted air space, airport congestion, and other obstacles. NASA is looking to present its research to the Federal Aviation Administration by the end of 2019. By that time, it estimates there will be 7 million small drones in operation, including 2.6 million aircraft for commercial use.

NASA scientists are engineering a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that they hope will help firefighters and other first responders escape dangerous situations. Set to launch next year, the system will help first responders through unpredictable fires and chemical leaks by giving them advice based on machine learning of past emergencies. The new system--called AUDREY--the Assistant for Understanding Data through Reasoning, Extraction and sYnthesis--is designed to be distributed to individual firefighters so it can collect a precise network of data directly from the field, and learn from that data for next time. No emergency is the same, which means first responders have to rely on extensive training and experience to stay safe in dangerous conditions that can change rapidly. The AUDREY system hopes to use distributed data collection and machine learning to better inform first responders about the situation at hand.

Machine learning is nipping at the heels of conventional physical modeling of air quality predictions in more and more places. The latest is Johannesburg, South Africa, where computer engineer Tapiwa M. Chiwewe at the newly opened IBM Research lab is adapting IBM's air quality prediction software to local needs and adding new capabilities. The work is an expansion of the so-called Green Horizons initiative, in which IBM researchers partnered with Chinese government researchers and officials, starting two years ago. Last month, Chiwewe presented some of the Johannesburg lab's first results, involving ground-level ozone level predictions, at the 14th International Conference on Industrial Informatics in Poitiers, France. "You can do a lot of physics to understand how ozone is found in different places," he says, "but what we did is we just collected a lot of data and trained these machines on it and they were able to predict [local ozone levels] without any knowledge of how ozone works in the atmosphere."

Tesla makes the world's best electric cars - but they're not content to rest on their laurels. The company just launched a powerful new battery that makes the Model S the fastest production car you can actually buy. Meanwhile, autonomous vehicle startup nuTonomy has beat Uber to the punch by launching the world's first fleet of self-driving taxis in Singapore. The MIT Climate CoLab awarded honors to a new elevated Caterpillar Train that soars over traffic jams. And in Europe, Paris is planning to go completely car-free for an entire day this September, and we spotted an awesome pedal-powered school bus on the streets of the Netherlands.

Sometimes, smaller is better, especially with robots. That's what researchers developing mini-robots have in mind. Robots that cost 10 to 100 are cheaper to make and more useful to deploy in emergency situations than big robots with limited mobility. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are developing sophisticated robots that are up to 10 centimeters long, and can run, climb, fly, and communicate with emergency personnel. Once the multi-leg robots serve their purpose, they can be disposed of without regrets.

Famous Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, who is credited as the author of the famous war strategy guidebook Art of War had said; "know thy self, know thy enemy. Those words were from the 5th century BC. The'art of war' in the 21st century is drastically different. So much so that Christopher Coker, professor at the London School of Economics and author of Warrior Geeks in a 2013 piece declared that technology, in fact, is now making man the weakest link in warfare. India is also now looking to get into the world of advanced drone warfare. New Delhi has shown renewed interest in buying some of the top US-made drones currently proving their worth for the American military around the world.

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