What will happen as we enter the era of human augmentation, artificial intelligence and government-by-algorithm? James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention, said: "Coexisting safely and ethically with intelligent machines is the central challenge of the twenty-first century." A lot of folks are earnestly exploring the topic. "Will scientists soon be able to create supercomputers that can read a newspaper with understanding, or write a news story, or create novels, or even formulate laws?" asks J. Storrs Hall in Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine (2007). "And if machine intelligence advances beyond human intelligence, will we need to start talking about a computer's intentions?" Sharing this concern, SpaceX/Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk has joined with Y Combinator founder Sam Altman to establish OpenAI, an endeavor that aims to keep artificial intelligence research -- and its products -- accountable by maximizing transparency and openness. Among the most-worried is Swiss author Gerd Leonhard, whose new book Technology Vs. Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man and Machine, coins an interesting term, "androrithm," to contrast with the algorithms that are implemented in every digital calculating engine or computer. Some foresee algorithms ruling the world with the inexorable automaticity of reflex, and Leonhard asks: "Will we live in a world where data and algorithms triumph over androrithms…i.e., all that stuff that makes us human?"

We had the opportunity to exchange ideas about the reality, trends and future of the bank industry some weeks ago, during the Banking Day 2018. We decided to call the event "Banking on the move: embracing new dynamics" because of the ongoing transformation all financial services firms go through. With the rise of Fintech, artificial intelligence and automation, banking is arguably one of the most impacted industries. During more than 4 hours, we had the chance to get a taste of what key Industry players in Luxembourg feel about the changes to come, and how they've started tackling digital transformation. Gerd Leonhard, an acknowledged futurist, took part in the event, sharing thought-provoking ideas and predictions, and inviting the audience to start living the future now.

Those fretfully debating artificial intelligence (AI) might best start by appraising the half dozen general pathways under exploration in laboratories around the world. While these general approaches overlap, they offer distinct implications for what characteristics emerging, synthetic minds might display, including (for example) whether it will be easy or hard to instill human-style ethical values. Most problematic may be those efforts taking place in secret. The "Moore's Law crossing" argument is appraised, in light of discoveries that brain computation may involve much more than just synapses. Will efforts to develop Sympathetic Robotics tweak compassion from humans long before automatons are truly self-aware? It is argued that most foreseeable problems might be dealt with the same way that human versions of oppression and error are best addressed -- via reciprocal accountability. For this to happen, there should be diversity of types, designs and minds, interacting under fair competition in a generally open environment. As varied concepts from science fiction are reified by rapidly advancing technology, some trends are viewed worriedly by our smartest peers. Portions of the intelligencia -- typified by Google's Ray Kurzweil [1] -- foresee AI, or Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as likely to bring good news, perhaps even transcendence for members of the Olde Race of bio-organic humanity 1.0. Others, such as Stephen Hawking and Francis Fukuyama, warn that the arrival of sapient, or supersapient machinery may bring an end to our species -- or at least its relevance on the cosmic stage -- a potentiality evoked in many a lurid Hollywood film. Swedish philosopher Nicholas Bostrom, in Superintelligence [2], suggests that even advanced AIs who obey their initial, human defined goals will likely generate "instrumental subgoals" such as self-preservation, cognitive enhancement, and resource acquisition. In one nightmare scenario, Bostrom posits an AI that -- ordered to "make paperclips" -- proceeds to overcome all obstacles and transform the solar system into paper clips. A variant on this theme makes up the grand arc in the famed "three laws" robotic series by science fiction author Isaac Asimov [3]. Taking middle ground, SpaceX/Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk has joined with YCombinator founder Sam Altman to establish OpenAI [4], an endeavor that aims to keep artificial intelligence research -- and its products -- accountable by maximizing transparency and accountability. As one who has promoted those two key words for a quarter of a century, I wholly approve [5].

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Interesting write-up by Jennifer L. Schenker published end of January on Techonomy. "We should not let Silicon Valley be the mission control for humanity," argues futurist Gerd Leonhard, author of a new book called Tech versus Humanity: The coming clash between man and machine. If autonomous AI software, crunching data far more rapidly than humans, can help eradicate disease and poverty and introduce societal improvements and efficiencies, then we must embrace it, Leonhard says. But "at the same time we have to have governance. And right now there is no such thing."

You are driving along and your car's brakes suddenly fail. If it swerves to the left, three old men and two elderly women will die. If the car veers to the right, it kills a woman doctor, two babies and a boy and girl. This question is part of MIT Media Lab's "moral machine," a platform for gathering peoples' opinions on moral decisions made by machine intelligence, such as self-driving cars. In the coming age of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), such life and death decisions and many other complicated ones will increasingly be made by machines rather than people.

What will happen as we enter the era of human augmentation, artificial intelligence and government-by-algorithm? James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention, said: "Coexisting safely and ethically with intelligent machines is the central challenge of the twenty-first century." A lot of folks are earnestly exploring the topic. "Will scientists soon be able to create supercomputers that can read a newspaper with understanding, or write a news story, or create novels, or even formulate laws?" asks J. Storrs Hall in Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine (2007). "And if machine intelligence advances beyond human intelligence, will we need to start talking about a computer's intentions?" Sharing this concern, SpaceX/Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk has joined with YCombinator founder Sam Altman to establish OpenAI, an endeavor that aims to keep artificial intelligence research – and its products – accountable by maximizing transparency and openness. Among the most-worried is Swiss author Gerd Leonhard, whose new book Technology Vs. Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man and Machine, coins an interesting term, "androrithm," to contrast with the algorithms that are implemented in every digital calculating engine or computer.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly and inexorably reshaping all aspects of our world. Businesses that fail to switch on to the possibilities of seismic market disruption and advancement or utilise the technology now available face being banished to history – and soon. This was the prevailing warning emanating from Tata Communications' fourth CEO summit, which gathered 50 forward-thinking delegates last week at Coworth Park in Ascot, Berkshire, to address what those present agreed is the most important topic for the future of humanity. But given the welter of content on offer about the subject, many business leaders are suffering from "AI fatigue", unable to decide how seriously to take this nascent age of machine intelligence and uncertain how to unlock its potential. Gerd Leonhard, a session leader at the summit, thinks businesses of all sizes need to transform their approach and culture from the top down.

Digital transformation isn't just about technology - it's also about humans, and telcos need to find the right balance between the two in order to successfully transform. That was the message from Gerd Leonhard, futurist and CEO of The Futures Agency, during a keynote at the morning plenary of the CommunicAsia2016 Summit on Wednesday. Leonhard said that digital transformation is being driven by technology trends such as exponential connectivity (i.e. the Internet of Things), big data, intelligence (intelligent assistants and AI), and man-machine convergence. An example of the latter is the rise of the smart device as an external brain, and the cloud as a global brain. "This is changing how we interact with computers - we touch them and speak to them," he said.

DUBAI // Despite rapid transformations in the way humans live, the future should be embraced and not feared, said Gerd Leonhard, author and self-described futurist. Through emerging technologies such as cloud computing and "the Internet of Things", in the next five years Mr Leonhard said 75 per cent of "the whole world" will be connected. "There's many great things about this, and there's many challenges about this," he said. "There are predictions saying that 80 per cent of the military budget in 10 years will be spent on data cloud, cyber issues. "Our world is going to change more in the next 20 years than the previous 300 years." This week, he addressed attendees at the SubOptic 2016 conference -- an event for the submarine fibre-optic cable industry -- and touched upon issues that will affect the entire internet's infrastructure, such as bandwidth and access. Mr Leonhard, a Swiss national and native German speaker, recounted an experience in Japan earlier this month where he used a mobile app to talk about fish with a Japanese-speaking sushi chef for 30 minutes. What made his conversation possible, and what will be central to the continuing change he describes, is connectivity and the role of the internet in nearly every aspect of our daily lives, he said. Language translation, as he illustrated through his sushi restaurant anecdote, as well as things such as artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, are all emerging technologies being built around connectivity. Due to interconnectivity and associated technologies, by 2030, he said roughly 40 to 60 per cent of all jobs will be completed by machines. Areas such as finance, real estate, medicine, energy and food are still to be "disrupted" in the way other industries, such as media, telecommunications and transportation, have in recent years, he said. Associated challenges that will continue to emerge will revolve around ethics, establishing limits on how humans approach issues such as artificial intelligence and human genome editing, capabilities and control over the internet's infrastructure and cyber security. "Watching the media or watching movies about the future, there's always one thing that comes up - that we're all going to die because the robots will take over the world.