Last year, McKinsey launched a multi-year study to explore the potential impact of automation technologies on jobs, organizations and the future of work. "Can we look forward to vast improvements in productivity, freedom from boring work, and improved quality of life?," its initial article on the study asked, or "Should we fear threats to jobs, disruptions to organizations, and strains on the social fabric?" Most jobs involve a number of different tasks or activities. Some of these activities are more amenable to automation than others. But just because some of the activities have been automated, does not imply that the whole job has disappeared. To the contrary, automating parts of a job will often increase the productivity and quality of workers by complementing their skills with machines and computers, as well as by enabling them to focus on those aspects of the job that most need their attention.

Humanoid robots still have problems staying upright, especially in tricky situations, but it's evident that they're making some progress. IHMC has posted a video showing Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot balancing on one foot on the edge of a plywood board about 0.8 inches thick. The feat is a "lucky run," IHMC admits (it's rare that the robot stays poised for so long), but it's relatively effortless. The worst you see before the fall is shaking as IHMC's algorithm sometimes makes poor estimates of the robot's state. As brief as the balancing act is, it's telling.

Steam rolled out of the pot, and my kitchen was filled with an intoxicating blend of scents. I'd cooked a turkey ragu before, but as soon as I opened the pot, I knew this would be an entirely different experience. There were the familiar, comforting notes of ground turkey and mushrooms, but there was also earthiness from the beets, the fire of serrano chile, and an unexpected brightness from the coriander seed (coriander seed!). My dinner wouldn't have been out of place at one of San Francisco's trendy food trucks or upscale restaurants, but coming out of my 15 IKEA pot, it was unbelievable. As I mixed in the pasta and ricotta cheese and took the first incredible bite, I realized that A.I. could do a lot more for me than just beating me at Go.

This article is part of an MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. Smart machines need ethics, too: Remember that movie in which a computer asked an impossibly young Matthew Broderick, "Shall we play a game?" Four decades later, it turns out that global thermonuclear war may be the least likely of a slew of ethical dilemmas associated with smart machines -- dilemmas with which we are only just beginning to grapple. The worrisome lack of a code of ethics for smart machines has not been lost on Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft, according to a report by John Markoff in The New York Times. The five tech giants (if you buy Mark Zuckerberg's contention that he isn't running a media company) have formed an industry partnership to develop and adopt ethical standards for artificial intelligence -- an effort that Markoff infers is motivated as much to head off government regulation as to safeguard the world from black-hearted machines. On the other hand, the first of a century's worth of quinquennial reports from Stanford's One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) throws the ethical ball into the government's court.

It's been a good week for whales. NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries took nine of 14 populations of humpback whales off the endangered species list. It's a place that humpback whales have occupied since the Endangered Species Act was signed in 1973. The Marine Mammal Protection Act still applies to all humpback whale populations, and the whales will continue to be protected from hunting and other activities. New regulations will also limit the distance at which vessels can approach humpback whales in Alaska and Hawaii, where whales are frequently spotted.

NOTE: This is an extract from our chapter on Healthcare in The Fourth Transformation: Why AR & AI Will Change Everything. In the fourth transformation, people will be leading healthier and longer lives. Of course, AR/VR will play roles in this, as will other enhanced technologies that tap directly into the human brain and nanotech devices that will swim around our bodies hunting down cancer cells and other malicious attackers. In addition, when things inside our bodies become irreparably broken, we will bypass them with external solutions that connect to the brain. This is a chapter that deals with personal and emotional issues related to healthcare, but also, keeps in mind that it is a huge industry.

Editor's note: We're proud to bring NextDraft--the most righteous, most essential newsletter on the web--to WIRED.com. Every Friday you'll get a roundup of the week's most popular must-read stories from around the internet, courtesy of mastermind Dave Pell. "Such results contradict long-established ideas suggesting that expert performance is built mainly through practice -- that anyone can get to the top with enough focused effort of the right kind. SMPY, by contrast, suggests that early cognitive ability has more effect on achievement than either deliberate practice or environmental factors such as socio-economic status." Before you steal the lunch money from a precociously gifted young person, consider the strong likelihood that they will one day be running the world.

FILE - This Monday, Feb. 8, 2016, file photo shows a sign on the window at a Chipotle Mexican Grill in Brandon, Fla. Chipotle is taking part in a test in September 2016 that will let some Virginia Tech students and staff have their favorite tortilla-wrapped meal delivered by drone. Virginia Tech is conducting the test with Project Wing, a unit of Google owner Alphabet Inc., which makes self-flying devices that deliver food, medicine and other goods. Chipotle's burritos will be put together at a food truck and then loaded on a drone.

AI-enabled messaging programs that respond to text-based requests -- are the latest innovation that startups and corporations are using to serve existing customers and bring in new ones. Companies across a wide variety of industries are building these tools on popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Kik, and Hipchat, as well as on their own websites and apps. Some are even available by text, to help users do things like fight parking tickets, respond to customer service inquiries, and order tacos. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you see we're missing a chatbot that's currently up and running, please share the link with us in the comments section. We'll add new, significant chatbots to the list over time.

Robots and drones have already started to quietly transform many aspects of agriculture. And now a new report is predicting the agricultural robotics industry, now serving a 3 billion market, will grow to 10 billion by 2022. The report, by IDTechEx Research in Britain, is called Agricultural Robots and Drones 2016-2026: Technologies, Markets, and Players. It analyses how robotic market and technology developments will change agriculture, enabling ultra-precision farming and helping address key global challenges. It describes how robotic technology will enter into different aspects of agriculture, how it will change the way farming is done and transform its value chain, how it becomes the future of agrochemicals business and modifies the way we design agricultural machinery.