In the animal kingdom, having a big brain is usually linked with being smarter. But a new study by scientists in France shows this is not actually true when it comes to domestic dogs. They found that breeds with smaller brains respond best to training and have good short-term memory – two traits considered'clever' in dogs. Meanwhile, breeds with bigger brains scored higher for fear, aggression, attention-seeking behaviours and separation anxiety – traits linked with dimwittedness. So, if you've got a big dog such as a Retriever, Rottweiler or Siberian Husky, they're likely to have a smaller brain but higher brainpower.

A new biography of Elon Musk was published on Tuesday and contains colourful details of the life of the world's richest man. Musk afforded widespread access to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, the author of the bestselling biography of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and the book contains a series of illuminating anecdotes about Musk. Here are eight things we learned from the book. Musk, 52, was born and raised in South Africa and endured a fraught relationship with his father, Errol, an engineer. Isaacson writes that Errol " bedevils Elon".

The best-known ones link the brain to an artificial limb. We're also working with research teams to improve cognition and memory. Work published by the University of Pennsylvania showed that correctly timed stimulation could improve memory and learning in patients with electrodes implanted in their brains. I just spoke with a customer who's planning to use our devices to diagnose schizophrenia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's based on a fingerprint--or activity pattern--recorded directly from the brain. Neural devices could also enable us to conduct cognitive tasks more rapidly. I think that will have the largest impact.

For a different take on AI, Unanimous A.I., a San Francisco based startup, is taking a cue from nature in using algorithms to amplify human brainpower. Louis Rosenberg, its CEO, is a Stanford PhD, named on over 350 patents, and built the first immersive augmented reality system for the Air Force's Armstrong lab in the early 1990s. Rosenberg explains the hive concept by noting how bees go about building new homes. Honeybees have less than a million neurons of brainpower compared with a human's 100 billion. Yet collectively, they form a swarm intelligence, coming to agreement on the complicated task of building a new home that factors in protection from weather, predators, and other issues.

I want to tell you straight off what this story is about: Sometime in the next 40 years, robots are going to take your job. I don't care what your job is. If you dig ditches, a robot will dig them better. If you're a magazine writer, a robot will write your articles better. If you're a doctor, IBM's Watson will no longer "assist" you in finding the right diagnosis from its database of millions of case studies and journal articles. It will just be a better doctor than you. Robots will run companies better than you do. Robots will paint and write and sculpt better than you. Think you have social skills that no robot can match? Within 20 years, maybe half of you will be out of jobs. A couple of decades after that, most of the rest of you will be out of jobs. In one sense, this all sounds great. Let the robots have the damn jobs! We'll be free to read or write poetry or play video games or whatever we want to do.

Originally published on VentureBeat as "We need small players to help shape the future of AI" Google, Alibaba, Facebook, Baidu, and other tech giants are leading the charge in developing and acquiring AI companies and talent. Many observers have expressed concern that the big players are dominating what will be one of the most important fields in technology. Unlike past waves of technological development, the AI boom could shut out startups and entrepreneurs. I've written about the potential for AI to create a stratified society, but I am optimistic about the ability of smart, savvy visionaries to build leading AI technologies without backing from major tech companies. AI is a buzzword right now.

Smart people are starting to worry about the brainpower of machines. A recent report from Harvard said the emergence of artificial intelligence as a weapon poses as much game-changing potential as the airplane and the nuclear bomb. They worry it could give small countries and terrorists the long-range strike capability of a superpower, the ability to crash our cyber systems and create a channel for fake news that would overwhelm our understanding of what's real and what's not. Elon Musk, the Tesla/Hyperloop/SpaceX dude prone to the grandiose, thinks unchecked artificial intelligence could become an existential threat to mankind. If we're not careful, he warns, we'll end up in a world where humans answer to machines and not the other way around.

Got It has a new use for artificial intelligence. The startup uses AI to find human experts who can help with complex problems. Got It calls this on-demand knowledge-as-a-service (KaaS). The platform helps professionals, learners, and consumers quickly and affordably get personalized, interactive solutions to their questions. You can think of it as a Google search, but one that is so complex that you really have to find an expert for it.

A stomach hormone that stimulates appetite seems to promote the growth of new brain cells and protect them from the effects of ageing – and may explain why some people say that fasting makes them feel mentally sharper. When ghrelin was first discovered, it became known as the hunger hormone. It is made by the stomach when it gets empty, and whenever we go a few hours without food its levels rise in our blood. But there is also evidence that ghrelin can enhance cognition. Animals that have reduced-calorie diets have better mental abilities, and ghrelin might be part of the reason why.

THE V12 engine found in the Aston Martin DB9 is notable not just for its brawn--it produces 450 horsepower--but also for its brain. It detects cylinder misfires using an artificial neural network, a system modelled on the interconnected neurons of a simple brain. This year Ford, which owns the Aston Martin brand, introduced the same technology into a second vehicle, the Econoline van, and plans to include it in all Aston Martin cars in future. Other carmakers are following suit: DaimlerChrysler is interested in using neural networks to handle the complexities of variable valve timing in order to make next-generation engines more fuel-efficient. General Motors has been working with Axeon, a British firm that makes neural-network chips, to improve engine performance. And Audi is also rumoured to be working with Axeon.