The University of South Australia will lead a world-first study, using artificial intelligence, to map the risks of the most fatal reproductive cancer in women worldwide so it can be detected and treated earlier. Internationally-renowned nutritional epidemiologist Professor Elina Hypponen and a team from UniSA's Australian Centre for Precision Health have been awarded $1.2 million by the Federal Government to map the genetic and physical risks of ovarian cancer, based on the health records of 273,000 women from the UK Biobank database. A machine learning model, which automatically analyses the data to identify patterns of risk, is expected to accurately predict which women will develop ovarian cancer in the next 15 years. Ovarian cancer is usually diagnosed very late due to vague symptoms and few known causes, with a five-year survival rate of less than 30 per cent for women with late-stage cancer. Genes, diet and lifestyle come into play and the researchers say a computational approach will narrow down those most at risk.

Many of you will have heard of artificial intelligence (AI). You are probably aware that it is not the indestructible Arnie chasing after you in an old, abandoned factory but you may not realise how much of your life already functions on AI. As a general rule, any digital system that exhibits an aspect of human intelligence, such as perception or decision-making, is likely to be running on AI. Have you ever wondered how Google Maps precisely knows every location you search for? The amount of imagery data that would need to be analysed to annotate each house address in the entire world would take an army of workers several years.

The first Institute for Machine Learning will be implemented at the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site. The institute will build on world-leading research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, helping to deliver what is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution -- the transformation of the global economy through artificial intelligence. The University of Adelaide has signed a long-term lease which will see the old Women's Health Centre used for the site. The facility will become home to more than 200 creative thinkers, researchers and start-ups attracting the world's best and brightest to come to work and study in South Australia. "The University of Adelaide is already a world leader with the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies, and the transition to this new institute will build further on the work being done as well as Adelaide's reputation as an incubator of innovation," said Science and Information Economy Minister Kyam Maher.

Remember The Jetsons – the animated sitcom that reflected popular 1960s imaginings that technology had all the answers? Life, it envisaged, would continue much the way it had, but with our every whim served by platoons of sentient robots – dubious gender stereotypes aside. So, how did all that work out for us? "There is a fundamental disconnect between what we roboticists say and what the public perceives," says Ian Reid, deputy director of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, in Brisbane. Sure, we use robots for all sorts of things, but they aren't what fiction prepared us for – although the work of the centre is dedicated to turning that fiction into reality.

Facebook automatically finds and tags friends in your photos. Google Deepmind's AlphaGo computer program trounced champions at the ancient game of Go last year. Skype translates spoken conversations in real time – and pretty accurately too. Behind all this is a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning. But what is deep learning and how does it work?

Amazon employs 45,000 robots, but they all have something missing: hands. Squat wheeled machines carry boxes around in more than 20 of the company's cavernous fulfillment centers across the globe. But it falls exclusively to humans to do things like pulling items from shelves or placing them into those brown boxes that bring garbage bags and pens and books to our homes. Robots able to help with so-called picking tasks would boost Amazon's efficiency--and make it much less reliant on human workers. It's why the company has invited a motley crew of mechanical arms, grippers, suction cups--and their human handlers--to Nagoya, Japan, this week to show off their manipulation skills.

Amazon employs 45,000 robots, but they all have something missing: hands. Squat wheeled machines carry boxes around in more than 20 of the company's cavernous fulfillment centers across the globe. But it falls exclusively to humans to do things like pulling items from shelves or placing them into those brown boxes that bring garbage bags and pens and books to our homes. Robots able to help with so-called picking tasks would boost Amazon's efficiency--and make it much less reliant on human workers. It's why the company has invited a motley crew of mechanical arms, grippers, suction cups--and their human handlers--to Nagoya, Japan, this week to show off their manipulation skills.