It's human nature to change nature. It seems part of our core program. We have the ability to imagine abstract things and then shape and mix the reality around us to create something new. As if we were gods, we have been intervening nature through history, cocreating our planet through arts, science, and the power of our fertile imagination. And when it comes to intervening our human nature itself, we don't think it twice.

The UK has a genuine opportunity to take a lead on the ethics of artificial intelligence, says Nigel Shadbolt, principal of Jesus College, Oxford and co-founder of the Open Data Institute (ODI). You forgot to provide an Email Address. This email address doesn't appear to be valid. This email address is already registered. You have exceeded the maximum character limit.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are supposed to help enterprises become more efficient by streamlining processes and taking over tasks currently performed by those unfocused, under-motivated humans known as employees. For those enterprise workers who don't lose their jobs to automation and machine learning, smart technologies can be used collaboratively by employees to make themselves more productive and effective. At least that's the theory, as reflected in comments by a couple of prominent CEOs appearing in a "future of work" panel at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Bill McDermott, chief executive of Germany-based software giant SAP: "We should be optimistic. We see augmented humanity as the opportunity. It's there to enrich our lives, not take anything away from us."

One of the great ironies of playing sport is that when you are older your experience is a great advantage, but your body no longer operates at its peak. Thanks to experience, game situations seem to slow down for you mentally and you can almost see what is happening before it happens. This is why older players are often better at making others look good than at making themselves look good. The problem they run into is that the great value of their experience is often overlooked. With high-level sports that makes sense, because the body needs to be in optimum state.

Global research firm IDC says the next era of IT transformation will marry technology with biology to take the human mind and body to unprecedented levels of mental and physical capability. That was one of the top worldwide IT predictions for 2017 as outlined Tuesday by Frank Gens, senior vice-president and chief analyst at IDC. Gens dubbed IDC's augmented humanity concept its new "fourth platform." Over the past few years, IDC has been laying out its view of a "third platform" consisting of cloud, mobile, social and big data/analytics. As described by Gens on Tuesday, the fourth platform of augmented humanity pushes the current wearable technology trend beyond skin-deep layers into "cellular and sub-cellular levels" of our biology. "The fourth platform will be the penetration of the human body and the integration of technologies with human biosystems," he said.