SINGAPORE - The science fiction trope of artificial intelligence (AI) going against human beings has been creeping into real life, with some businesses engaged in "robo firings". AI ethics experts said firing workers using AI is problematic partly because algorithms, at this time, cannot fully model human thinking and replace human intelligence. The Verge reported in 2019 that American e-commerce giant Amazon could automatically fire warehouse workers based on productivity metrics. A Californian law kicked in this year prohibiting warehouse bosses from imposing productivity quotas that prevent staff from, for instance, taking a break. Amazon declined to say what changes it would make to comply, Bloomberg reported last December.

Over the last few decades, machine learning has revolutionized many sectors of society, with machines learning to drive cars, identify tumors and play chess--often surpassing their human counterparts. Now, a team of scientists based at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), the University of Munich and the CNRS at the University of Bordeaux have shown that machines can also beat theoretical physicists at their own game, solving complex problems just as accurately as scientists, but considerably faster. In the study, recently published in Physical Review B, a machine learned to identify unusual magnetic phases in a model of pyrochlore--a naturally-occurring mineral with a tetrahedral lattice structure. Remarkably, when using the machine, solving the problem took only a few weeks, whereas previously the OIST scientists needed six years. "This feels like a really significant step," said Professor Nic Shannon, who leads the Theory of Quantum Matter (TQM) Unit at OIST. "Computers are now able to carry out science in a very meaningful way and tackle problems that have long frustrated scientists."

The Times of India spoke to Kathy Bloomgarden, Global CEO of Ruder Finn, on the role of emerging technologies, its impact and challenges for global industries and businesses. Q: What brings you to India? A: India has fantastic potential and I think more and more people are beginning to realize this. Even though you see some slow down and people are concerned about it, it's still amongst the fastest growing economies in the world. With the focus being on digitisation means you will be increasing your ability to be productive, to go into new areas, to bring new innovations globally.

Human civilization is the product of intelligence, complex structures and diverse laws developed over the course of time. Those fundamental building blocks of civilization have led humans toward new kinds of innovation in the form of art, music, architecture and philosophy. These innovations have helped civilizations flourish and amplify human intelligence through various revolutions. In the progress of human civilization, two major historical revolutions have been consequential: the Agricultural and the Industrial Revolution. The first one is the sole reason behind the creation of societies and the latter one helped enhance the overall productivity of society.

Is there one term to describe the fantastic machines and infinite computing power built around the cloud, innovative chips, and semiconductors already in use by a growing number of companies? "Artificial intelligence (AI) technology," according to SAP's senior director of advanced analytics, Chandran Saravana, on Coffee Break with Game Changers Radio, presented by SAP on May 3, 2017. He and SAP's senior director of Big Data initiatives, David Jonker, joined producer/moderator Bonnie D. Graham (follow on Twitter: @SAPRadio and #SAPRadio) for a lively discussion on "Machine Learning: Man vs. Machine Or Man Machine?" Chandran observed, "Businesses are already relying heavily on this level of AI. But when it comes to machine learning, you have to bridge a big gap to teach the machines how to learn – so machines can become smarter every day." It describes a computer science subfield that analyzes algorithms iteratively to find hidden insights, but without being explicitly told where to look.

Come 2050, a researcher predicts, the human race would cease to exist. It is not because of a nuclear holocaust or due to an extraterrestrial body hitting the earth. Researcher Jeff Nesbit, a former director of the US-based National Science Foundation, believes our extinction would be triggered by our own creation: artificial intelligence. He claims that the human race would either cease to exist by 2050 -- or become immortal. While both the scenarios appear to be taken from science fiction, it is a fact that we are staring at a human crisis caused by automation and robotics, which are the result of machine intelligence.

When I first learned that I would be attending IBM InterConnect to provide feedback on IBM's efforts related to cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Watson, I started to reflect on how much IBM has already influenced the IT and security industries during the span of my career. My first recollection was from my early days of working for a boutique consulting practice where we often lost bids to larger, more established firms. I became familiar with a saying, "Nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM," which I took to mean, "You might not be getting the best, but you're getting a company with a solid reputation, so nobody will hold you accountable for their efforts, good or bad." The more I thought about my experiences with IBM, the more I realized how many IBM technologies I have encountered over the years and how innovative and life-changing they were. I thought back to my college days and remembered how invaluable my IBM Selectric II electric typewriter was for doing homework and writing term papers.

The fears of a robot uprising are one-step closer to becoming a reality. A video of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros has surfaced and it shows an artificial intelligence (AI) system beating top ranked human players – and without mercy. Researches trained a neural network model by feeding it coordinates of objects in the game, such as players and ledges, and gave it incentives to be sure it would win. A video of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros has surfaced and it shows an artificial intelligence (left) system beating top human players (right) – and without mercy. The AI was developed by a team at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Discussions about the ethics, safety, and societal impact of Artificial Intelligence seem to come back to the same cultural touch points found in AI stories that warn of worst-case scenarios. Whether in press coverage or in policy position papers, we keep going back to the same stories. We need to tell more diverse and realistic stories about AI if we want to understand how these technologies fit into our society today, and in the future. In Kubrick's HAL 9000, the calm assistant shuts Dave out of the system in 2001. In The Terminator, the AI defense system SkyNet becomes self-aware and initiates a nuclear holocaust to decimate the human race.

The latest battle between man and machine is being played out on the poker tables of a Pennsylvania casino, and so far humanity is losing. An artificial intelligence computer program called Liberatus has accumulated winnings of almost $800,000 against a team of professional poker players at the Brain Vs. Liberatus, developed by Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, is aiming to be the first computer program to win a professional poker tournament--a game considered by many AI researchers to be one of the hardest for computers to beat humans at. Artificial intelligence advances in recent years have seen computers master and eventually outperform the best human players at games including Chess and the game show Jeopardy!. In 2016, researchers at Google's DeepMind developed a system that was able to beat champion Go player Lee Sedol--a significant step for artificial intelligence.