It all started with an obscure article in an obscure journal, published just as the last AI winter was beginning to thaw. In 2004, Andreas Matthias wrote an article with the enigmatic title, "The responsibility gap: Ascribing responsibility for the actions of learning automata." In it, he highlighted a new problem with modern AI systems based on machine learning principles. Once, it made sense to hold the manufacturer or operator of a machine responsible if the machine caused harm, but with the advent of machines that could learn from their interactions with the world, this practice made less sense. Learning automata (to use Matthias' terminology) could do things that were neither predictable nor reasonably foreseeable by their human overseers.

QUESTION: I've heard horror stories about the latest Windows 10 update; is there a way to stop it from loading on my laptop? ANSWER: There have been widespread reports of major issues for certain laptops with the August Cumulative Windows 10 update also known as version 2004. Cumulative updates are a collection of security and performance fixes only while "Feature updates" are the ones that add new functionality to Windows. By default, Windows 10 automatically updates itself so these problematic updates are catching some users by surprise. Various Lenovo ThinkPad models that were released in the past couple of years have been experiencing numerous blue screen of death (BSoD) issues along with errors in the device manager and the inability to use the facial recognition login in Windows Hello.

Last year's Cyber Monday was the biggest single shopping day in Amazon's 25 year history, but the company's success has led to problems for the country's recycling industry. The number of annual deliveries through the US Postal Service, Amazon's default delivery method, has doubled over the last decade, going from 3.1 billion in 2009 to 6.2 billion in 2018. The extraordinary growth of cardboard waste from shipping materials has been dubbed'the Amazon effect' at many waste removal and recycling companies. Waste management and recylcing firms have begun to call the enormous growth in packaging materials that end up in the trash as'the Amazon effect' According to a report in The Verge, corrugated cardboard accounts for close to half of the curbside recycling material in New York today, compared to just fifteen percent in 2003. The enormous increase in residential packaging materials has come at the worst possible time, as in 2018 China, formerly the world's largest recycler, began refusing shipments of recyclable cardboard from the US in instances where it was contaminated by .5 percent or more of other material.

How will driverless cars, tested on the reliable roads of California and Arizona, cope with the narrow lanes, roundabouts and left-sided driving of Britain? They will certainly have to adapt if they're to become the global phenomenon that companies including Uber have promised is on its way, wrote technology reporter Olivia Rudgard on Wednesday. Take, for example, the many minor UK roads that don't have white lines, which driverless cars rely on to know which lane they should be in and how to position themselves. She offered four other reasons why autonomous vehicles could cause havoc on roads this side of the pond, and asked Telegraph readers for their views on whether this innovation will be...

Not all bubbles have negative consequences for the economy. An AI bubble is more likely to generate value than wreak havoc. With investments in artificial intelligence rising rapidly, especially in China and the United States, two questions arise: Are we heading toward an AI bubble? And if so, how bad would it be if the bubble were to burst? Having studied AI intensely for the past two years, our best guess to the first question is, yes, today's fascination with all things AI has most of the trappings of a financial bubble.

Popular science fiction of the early 20th century depicted Venus as some kind of wonderland of pleasantly warm temperatures, forests, swamps and even dinosaurs. In 1950, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Natural History Museum were soliciting reservations for the first space tourism mission, well before the modern era of Blue Origins, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. All you had to do was supply your address and tick the box for your preferred destination, which included Venus. Today, Venus is unlikely to be a dream destination for aspiring space tourists. As revealed by numerous missions in the last few decades, rather than being a paradise, the planet is a hellish world of infernal temperatures, a corrosive toxic atmosphere and crushing pressures at the surface.

It is said – often by our mothers – that we are looking a bit'peaky' or under the weather even when we do not notice ourselves. Now researchers have discovered that humans have an ability to pick up the subtle signs that show someone is sick within minutes of them getting an infection. Some signs of sickness are obvious– such as a violent cough, or the spots on the face in measles. These are obvious enough to ensure the ill person gets a wide birth. But in an illustration of the amazing power of the human brain, a glance of a few seconds was enough for observers tell if people had just caught a nasty bug.

Nasa is sending a robot to the sun to help understand dangerous solar activity which could threaten humanity's existence. The mission, known as the Solar Probe Plus (SPP), will go seven times closer to the sun's surface than any spacecraft before it. Nasa is launching the Solar Probe Plus (SPP) which scientists hope will unlock secrets of the sun's corona - the hole at the heart of the star It is unstable and produces solar wind and flares. Millions of tons of highly magnetized material can erupt from the sun at speeds of several million miles an hour. We need to get closer to it in order to understand how it works.