As financial companies have begun employing automated advisors aimed at helping customers manage their money, and oncologists have started using the artificial intelligence system known as Watson to identify new treatments, the prominent role that sophisticated computer programs have begun to occupy in our lives has become undeniable. Government agencies are also harnessing the powers of automation. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, are starting to use complex computer models that can predict environmental exposure to chemicals and drug interactions across patient groups. As agencies begin to enter this brave new world of automation, questions have begun to emerge about how government officials should delegate important tasks to machines. For one, will automation negatively affect the level and quality of human deliberation and dialogue that are integral to democratic governance? Furthermore, when adjudicating individual determinations, like the awarding of disability benefits, will machines prove incapable of providing much needed empathy to claimants?

Mountain View, California-based Drive.ai is a startup created by former lab mates from Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Lab. Originally founded in 2015 by Carol Reiley and Fred Rosenzweig, Drive.ai raised $12 million in Series A funding earlier this year to develop deep learning algorithms to control the operation of autonomous vehicles. Building on experience gained from the DARPA Grand Challenge, Google and other self-driving pioneers programmed the first self-driving car to rely primarily on light detection and ranging (LIDAR), which is a remote sensing method that uses pulses of laser light to measure distances, and detailed mapping. Although this has worked pretty well, the current technology is expensive. Making autonomous vehicles easier to manufacture with less expensive parts will make them more affordable.

FILE - In this photo provided by the National Transportation Safety Board via the Florida Highway Patrol, a Tesla Model S that was being driven by Joshua Brown, who was killed when the Tesla sedan crashed while in self-driving mode on May 7, 2016. A source tells The Associated Press that U.S. safety regulators are ending an investigation into a fatal crash involving electric car maker Tesla Motors' Autopilot system without a recall. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration scheduled a call Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, about the investigation.

Cybersecurity was all over the news in 2016 – whether it was email breaches that compromised the Democrat campaign for the elections, or revelations towards the end of the year that planes were vulnerable to hacking through in-flight entertainment systems. The British government boasted that it had the capabilities to launch cybersecurity offensives and was committing a huge chunk of its budget to developing these further. Yahoo suffered from an attack that potentially gained access to 1 billion accounts, the largest known breach of all time. Vendors, hackers, banks, businesses, countries and shadowy state actors all seem locked in a perpetual game of cat and mouse – and highly sophisticated and organised malicious attackers seem to have the upper hand. According to the experts, here are some of the cybersecurity nightmares organisations will have to wrangle with in 2017.

A scarf designed to filter out harmful elements in city air. A breast pump that fits into a bra and keeps track of pumping volume. A drone that can dive into water and help anglers catch a big one. CES 2017, the consumer tech event held in Las Vegas this week, featured vendors with automated baubles, humanoid robots and "smart" everything -- a dishwasher, hairbrush and lawnmower, to name a few. But it's not so much the gadgets as their underlying technology that will make CIOs -- who seek out new tools for business, not the home or yard -- stop, look and listen.

Popular visions of artificial intelligence often focus on robots and the dystopian future they will create for humanity, but to understand the true impact of AI, its skeptics and detractors should look at the future of cybersecurity. The reason is simple: If we have any hope of winning the war on cybercrime, we have no choice but to rely on AI to supplement our human skills and experience. With the number and sophistication of cybercriminals continuing to grow, the technology industry has started to address this challenge through the use of AI. As with many new technologies, however, the good that AI can do is threatened by the misconceptions and hyperbole that surround it. For this reason, the technology industry must address these popular perceptions, and that starts with redefining AI as what it truly is: augmented intelligence.

The development of self-driving, or autonomous, vehicles is accelerating. Here's how they could affect consumers and companies. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent a major innovation for the automotive industry, but their potential impact with respect to timing, uptake, and penetration remains hazy. While high levels of uncertainty currently surround the issue, the ultimate role that AVs could play regarding the economy, mobility, and society as a whole could be profound. In an effort to look beyond today's rapidly changing predictions on AV penetration, we interviewed more than 30 experts across Europe, the United States, and Asia and combined these findings with our insights to arrive at ten thought-provoking potential implications of self-driving cars. The widespread use of AVs could profoundly affect a variety of industry sectors.

Our lives are now heavily mediated by digital technology (music streaming, social media, e-banking etc). We are increasingly and often continuously online, open to engagement in a myriad of services and simultaneously open to cyberattack. We now need to defend against the lone wolf hacker, organised crime and terrorism, and nation states with well-funded advanced capabilities. The 2016 cyber message is clear – we have a big problem, it's going to get worse, and we need help. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a promising source of such help.

Inc. surprised some with one of its next-gen commerce announcements. Amazon Go, which promises to eliminate the checkout altogether, generated headlines in mainstream media and prompted some to contemplate the potential demise of retail as we know it. Lost in all this hype is the fact that the brick-and-mortar apocalypse is no more likely today than it was before Amazon's recent endeavor. Of course, Amazon, which is the world's largest internet retailer, has set the standard for commerce reinvention with fast delivery, near-invisible payments and other perks tied to its Amazon Prime membership platform . Amazon has outpaced the rapid growth of digital commerce in the retail industry globally, increasing its own market share from 12% in 2011 to 19% in 2016, according to the latest data from Euromonitor International.

One sector which appears safe for now is academia; at the end of 2016 a team of researchers gave up making a robot which could pass the entrance exam for Tokyo University. Noriko Arai, a professor at the National Institute of Informatics, told Kyodo news agency: "AI is not good at answering the type of questions that require an ability to grasp meanings across a broad spectrum". The spread of AI isn't limited to Japan; our NHS is trialing artificial intelligence as an alternative to the 111 helpline, and bosses have said AI is the next frontier for online retail. Professor Steven Hawking warned in October last year of the "disruption" AI could bring to our economy. He said that the technology promised to bring great benefits, such as eradicating disease and poverty, but "will also bring dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many".