Adam Roberts' Lake of Darkness opens as two space ships investigate a black hole The starting point for this novel was that I wanted to write utopian fiction. I hadn't done this before: all my previous novels have been straight science fiction. But utopia, the genre that imagines a better, or a perfect, world, is older than science fiction: the first utopian novel, the work that coined the term, was written by Thomas More all the way back in 1516. I was interested in what happened to the mode: More's Utopia generated lots of imitators. Through the 17th and 18th centuries, a great many utopian books, novels, tracts and treatises were written.

Each evokes memories of the golden age of video games, which brought the first wave of consoles you could connect to your home television. But there's an oft-forgotten person from that era whose contributions to the industry still resonate today: a black engineer named Jerry Lawson. Lawson oversaw the creation of the Channel F, the first video game console with interchangeable game cartridges – something the first Atari and Magnavox Odyssey systems did not use. Those initial consoles had a selection of games hardwired into the console itself. But Lawson, an engineer and designer at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp., led a team at the Silicon Valley semiconductor maker charged with creating a game system using Fairchild's F8 microprocessor and storing games on cartridges.

Two paintings up for auction in New York highlight a growing interest in artificial intelligence-created works -- a technique that could transform how art is made and viewed but is also stirring up passionate debate. The art world was stunned last year when an AI painting sold for $432,500, and auctioneers are keen to further test demand for computer-generated works. "Art is a true reflection of what our society, what our environment responds to," said Max Moore of Sotheby's. "And so it's just a natural continuation of the progression of art," he added. Sotheby's will put two paintings by the French art collective Obvious up for sale on Thursday, including "Le Baron De Belamy."

AI has moved into the art world. Two paintings up for auction in New York highlight a growing interest in artificial intelligence-created works – a technique that could transform how art is made and viewed but is also stirring up passionate debate. Last year, the art world was stunned when an AI painting sold for US$432,500, and auctioneers are keen to further test demand for computer-generated works. "Art is a true reflection of what our society, what our environment responds to," said Max Moore of Sotheby's. Sotheby's will put two paintings by the French art collective Obvious up for sale this week, including "Le Baron De Belamy."

Edmond de Bellamy, from La Famillie de Bellamy created by Obvious, a French group; was auctioned and sold for $432,500 at Christie s, a British auction house. The big difference with this painting is how it was created. It was not created with brushes, pigments, canvas, paper or even a painter. The secret of this painting is the use of Artificial Intelligence. According to Obvious webpage, the creation process consists of data selection, image creation, training and production. In a nutshell, on the train process images are generated based on the selected paintings and that occurs until the machine cannot distinguish between created images and real images, finally the painting is enhanced and printed.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived in the mainstream and is augmenting decision making in many industries. From data-driven understanding of students' needs in education, to surrogate operators in combat and training in aviation, to robo advice dispensed in financial services, AI is available in multiple flavours to all takers. While the boardroom discusses how best to implement it, chief data officers seem poised to take centre stage when it comes to the rollout of AI. The emergence of the data chief reflects the starring role of data within commercially savvy organisations. A chief data officer (CDO) newcomer, Caroline Bellamy at mapping company Ordnance Survey, explains the mission: "Customers demand we do things [with their data] correctly and ethically. A lot of it is common sense, such as respecting individuals and rights, doing what we say we do. As data professionals, we have to hold in our hearts that we are doing the right things for both individuals and the organisation."

As AI becomes more advanced, more and more aspects of our daily life are touched by invisible algorithms. However, the more we entrust vital decisions to software, the greater the need becomes to interrogate how they work, and why they reach the conclusions they do. Concern has been slowly bubbling, with the book'Weapons of Math Destruction' by Cathy O'Neil highlighting the ways in which these algorithms can influence crucial decision making processes including whether to grant a loan, who to hire, college admissions, and bail decisions. One of the most potent dangers of algorithms is how they incorporate and perpetuate intentional and unintentional bias. Rachel Bellamy leads the IBM Research Human-Agent Collaboration group which examines, among other things, cognitive bias and how it's coded into AI.