Last month, nuTonomy began allowing the Singapore public to take trips in its self-driving vehicles for free. The company's previously invitation-only trial was launched in August, beating ride-hailing service Uber, which began offering autonomous car rides in Pittsburgh weeks later.

Ask not what the government can do for Silicon Valley; ask what Silicon Valley can do for the government. He presented WIRED with six challenges he feels the tech industry needs to address--just a few earthshaking problems the country could use some help with, that's all. We reached out to six of the biggest names in the WIRED world, and we gave each of them a challenge from the president's list. Then we asked: To get this done, what's the industry's best play? Silicon Valley runs on stories. So does the economy in general. We create what we believe in. If we believe we can use technology to identify and solve big problems, then that's what we'll do.

The vision of the so-called internet of things -- giving all sorts of physical things a digital makeover -- has been years ahead of reality. But that gap is closing fast. Today, the range of things being computerized and connected to networks is stunning, from watches, appliances and clothing to cars, jet engines and factory equipment. Even roadways and farm fields are being upgraded with digital sensors. In the last two years, the number of internet-of-things devices in the world has surged nearly 70 percent to 6.4 billion, according to Gartner, a research firm.

Outside a large warehouse in Pittsburgh, in an area along the Allegheny River that was once home to dozens of factories and foundries but now has shops and restaurants, I'm waiting for a different kind of technological revolution to arrive. I check my phone, look up, and notice it's already here. A white Ford Fusion, its roof bedazzled with futuristic--looking sensors, is idling nearby. Two people sit up front--one monitoring a computer, the other behind the wheel--but the car is in control. I hop in, press a button on a touch screen, and sit back as the self-driving Uber takes me for a ride. As we zip out onto the road toward downtown, the car stays neatly in its lane, threading deftly between an oncoming car and parked trucks that stick out into the street.

USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava takes his hands off the wheel of a Tesla Model S sedan while driving down the 280 Freeway north of the Tesla's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Pressure is building on Tesla Motors in Europe to stop using the name "Autopilot" to designate its partial self-driving system -- and the concerns could reverberate to the U.S. The issue is that Tesla's designation can encourage drivers to put too much reliance on Autopilot to protect them from crashing and not pay proper attention behind the wheel. Although Tesla says it repeatedly tells drivers that they need to stay in charge, a Tesla owner was killed in May when his car broadsided a tractor-trailer that turned in front of him. The Autopilot system was engaged at the time. Over the weekend, it was reported that Germany's Transport Ministry sent a letter to the California-based automaker telling it to stop using the name in advertising.

Anesthesiologists' jobs look safer than radiologists' jobs. In H. G. Wells's classic The War of the Worlds, the narrator pauses a moment to rue the fact that he didn't react sooner to the arrival of an "intelligence greater than man's"--in his case, Martians landing on earth. Comparing himself to a comfortable dodo in its nest, he imagined those ill-fated birds also dithering as hungry sailors invaded their island: "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear." As intelligent technologies take over more and more of the decision-making territory once occupied by humans, are you taking any action? Are you sufficiently aware of the signs that you should?

Rather than leading to the violent downfall of humankind, artificial intelligence is helping people around the world do their jobs, including doctors who diagnose sepsis in patients and scientists who track endangered animals in the wild, experts said Thursday (Oct. Advancements in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) haven't always been met with enthusiasm. Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warned on several occasions that a fully developed AI could destroy the human race, and Hollywood sci-fi movies are rife with fierce robots battling humans for control. But at Thursday's conference -- attended by the country's leading researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and students -- scientists explained how newly developed AI is accelerating research and improving lives. Here is a look at five AI inventions that are already redefining technology.

The Screen Actor's Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has announced that it will advise its members appearing in video games to take industrial action on Friday, October 21st. It's the culmination of a pitched battle between the union and the video game industry over how artists are compensated. SAG president Gabrielle Carteris said that despite months of negotiations, the pair haven't reached a fair agreement to cover actors appearing in "the most popular games in the world." The issue centers around how performers aren't compensated for appearing in games the same as they would for movies. In the words of Carteris, this is a "highly profitable industry" and that the strike is a way for SAG to secure for actors the "benefits they deserve."

Driven by a declining population, a trend for developing robotic babies has emerged in Japan as a means of encouraging couples to become "parents." The approaches taken vary widely and are driven by different philosophical approaches that also beg a number of questions, not least whether these robo-tots will achieve the aim of their creators. To understand all of this it is worth exploring the reasons behind the need to promote population growth in Japan. The issue stems from the disproportionate number of older people. Predictions from the U.N. suggest that by 2050 there will be about double the number of people living in Japan in the 70-plus age range compared to those aged 15-30.

Amid Syria's five-year-old civil war and Iraq's push to expel the Islamic State group from its major cities, President Barack Obama has quietly reneged on promises of "no boots on the ground" in recent years. But another American ground battle lingers just outside of the spotlight, in Somalia. A campaign involving private contractors, drone strikes and up to 300 U.S. Special Operations troops against the al Qaeda offshoot group al-Shabab has been escalating there over the past year, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing "senior American military officials." Operations in the country, located in the eastern "Horn of Africa," are expected to expand, according to the Times, on top of efforts that have involved the Navy's SEAL Team 6, weekly raids with troops from nearby Kenya and Uganda and interrogation of prisoners. The American use of force there hasn't exactly been welcome. At the end of September, for instance, Somalia's Security Minister Osman Issa accused the U.S. of killing 22 Somali soldiers in an airstrike, the result of bad intelligence information.