An Australian man was taken into custody Saturday for allegedly acting as an economic agent for North Korea and attempting to sell missile parts, military intelligence and coal on the black market. The Australian Federal Police arrested Chan Han Choi, 59, in Sydney and charged him with brokering sales of weapons of mass destruction, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It is the first time a charge of this kind has been leveled against anyone in Australia. The sales would violate Australian and United Nations sanctions. "We believe this man participated in discussions about the sale of missile componentry from North Korea to other entities abroad as another attempt to try and raise revenue for the government in North Korea, again in breach of the sanctions," said Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan in a statement.

Artificial intelligence has jumped from sci-fi movie plots into mainstream news headlines in just a couple of years. And the headlines are often contradictory. AI is either a technological leap into greater prosperity or mass unemployment; it will either be our most valuable servant or terrifying master. But what is AI, how does it work, and what are the benefits and the concerns? AI is a computer system that can do tasks that humans need intelligence to do. "An intelligent computer system could be as simple as a program that plays chess or as complex as a driverless car," Mary-Anne Williams, professor of social robotics at the University of Technology, Sydney, said.

Dan Hunter is a prison guard's worst nightmare. But he's not a hardened crim. As dean of Swinburne University's Law School, he's working to have most wardens replaced by a system of advanced artificial intelligence connected to a network of high-tech sensors. Called the Technological Incarceration Project, the idea is to make not so much an internet of things as an internet of incarceration. Professor Hunter's team is researching an advanced form of home detention, using artificial intelligence, machine-learning algorithms and lightweight electronic sensors to monitor convicted offenders on a 24-hour basis.

A robot has been detained by police at a political rally in Moscow, with authorities attempting to handcuff the machine. The rally was for Valery Kalachev, a candidate for the Russian Parliament, who had rented the robot for his campaign. Police have not confirmed why they detained the machine named Promobot, but local media was reporting the company behind the robot said police were called because it was "recording voters' opinions on [a] variety of topics for further processing and analysis by the candidate's team". A Promobot representative suggested it was detained because "perhaps this action wasn't authorised". Mr Kalachev has featured the robot at previous campaign stops.

Digital disruption has the potential to threaten 40 per cent of jobs over the next 10 to 15 years as automation and machine learning shake up the economy, according to a Productivity Commission report out today. In research entitled Digital Disruption: What do governments need to do?, the Commission warned that governments and regulators need to prepare for changing times as "disruption" moves beyond Uber and Air BnB. Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris said developing disruptive technologies of machine intelligence and automation will gradually change economies. "There's little doubt that in some sectors there will be dislocation of labour and dislocation of capital. "It's not just a cost to employees, it will be a cost to certain businesses as well," Mr Harris told The World Today. "Things like 3D printing are going to have an impact.