Houses hide behind patches of subtropical rainforest in Brisbane's western outskirts; horses graze paddocks and road signs warn of deer and kangaroos. Nestled between a bend in the river and the foothills of the D'Aguilar Range, the suburb of Anstead may appear unsuitable habitat for a Polish-born business professor who believes that we must embrace the age of artificial intelligence. Yet not all is as it seems in Marek Kowalkiewicz's home among the gum trees. "When I moved here from Silicon Valley my kids were about five years old and had no idea what an iPad was," he says from the veranda overlooking his acreage. "There's the technology-infused world I'm in 9pm to 5pm and then there is this slightly – on the surface – less technology-infused world." It is the first Monday of March and Kowalkiewicz is hours from launching The Economy of Algorithms: AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions.

During the last 30 years, digital data and artificial intelligence (AI) to exploit that data have emerged as central to management of our society. At the same time, the development of digital networks and big computing centers has promoted centralization of data and digital systems, leaving individuals and communities outside of this new digital ecosystem and without the ability to control local finance, health, or governance systems. New distributed technologies, loosely described as Web3 and employing technologies such as federated AI, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and others, have the potential to give back control of data, AI, and its benefits to individuals and communities. In addition to the many private efforts now being launched, some national governments are aggressively pursuing this new suite of technologies, but with much stronger government oversight. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop standards that guarantee a Web3 economy that remains truly distributed and yet provides global interoperability along with adequate protection for individuals and communities.

Algorithms are the heartbeat of applications, but they may not be perceived as entirely benign by their intended beneficiaries. Most educated people know that an algorithm is simply any stepwise computational procedure. Most computer programs are algorithms of one sort of another. Embedded in operational applications, algorithms make decisions, take actions, and deliver results continuously, reliably, and invisibly. But on the odd occasion that an algorithm stings -- encroaching on customer privacy, refusing them a home loan, or perhaps targeting them with a barrage of objectionable solicitation -- stakeholders' understandable reaction may be to swat back in anger, and possibly with legal action.

Creative destruction "is the essential fact about capitalism," wrote the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. New technologies and processes continuously revolutionize the economic structure from within, "incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one." Change happens more quickly and creatively during times of economic disruption. Innovations meeting material and cultural needs accelerate. Structures preventing new, more efficient technologies weaken.

As the labour market rapidly changes, new, nearly real-time data and metrics give us better insight than ever before into what the jobs of the future will look like. The kinds of jobs emerging in the global economy span a wide range of professions and skills, reflecting the opportunities for workers of all backgrounds and educational levels to take advantage of emerging jobs and the new economy. Identifying emerging jobs and the skills that they require provides valuable insights to inform training investments, and paves the way for a "Reskilling Revolution", as individuals seek new skills to keep pace with change. But for all of the opportunities that the new economy will bring, there are stark skills gaps and gender gaps that must be addressed. If we don't, they will continue to widen in the future.

The superpowers of the new economy are also the buzz words changing how the world interacts: Artificial intelligence, the "internet of things" and edge computing are the megatrends dominating the conversation on both a business and a personal level. "Practical everyday things are being done in AI," said David Floyer, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's mobile livestreaming studio. "It's going from being a niche to being just everyday use, and its impact long-term is profound." TheCUBE co-host Dave Vellante joined Floyer during today's Micron Insight event in San Francisco. They discussed recent developments in storage and memory, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing Micron Technology Inc. in the marketplace (see the full interview with transcript here).

Women are bearing the brunt of jobs losses brought on by increased automation, while men are benefiting from the best-paid new jobs on the market, according to new research from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). Up to 400,000 roles held by women in the public sector, banking and retail have been lost since 2011 due to a combination of automation and austerity measures, the RSA said. Female workers have further lost out because of the fall in private-sector roles such as retail cashiers, personal assistants and hairdressers, according to the analysis. The RSA found that programmers and software developers as well as HR managers and directors were among the top 20 fastest growing occupations, while retail cashiers and checkout operators were among the fastest shrinking. Many jobs in the new economy are well paid but the research found only one in 20 new coders and programmers are women.

Twelve candidates are divided into three teams and given the task of assembling a box. Twelve Rolls Royce employees stand around them, one assigned to each candidate, taking notes. The box is a prop, and the test has nothing to do with programming or repairing the robots that make engine parts here. "We are looking at what they say, we are looking at what they do, we are looking at the body language of how they are interacting," says Lorin Sodell, the plant manager. This story is part of the The New Economy podcast series.

Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has recently expressed positive sentiment regarding the use of emerging technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence as being drivers of economic growth. Continued automation and digitisation has led many people to grow fearful of losing their jobs to AI and Machine Learning. However, PM Modi claims that these technologies would not eliminate the need for human employment but would change the nature of the work done. Here we take a look at the various ways in which the World Economic Forum and NITI Aayog plan to use emerging tech for increased employment. Speaking at the launch of the fourth centre for the World Economic Forum in Maharashtra, PM Modi addressed the fear of critics that automation would lead to a decrease in employment.

The future is also not all bleak as clearly there are many new jobs being created. The IDC sees 2.1m jobs being created in the US by technology augmenting workers in the world of CRM over the five years to 2021. AI has the potential to make many jobs more productive and remove a lot of the mundane and boring elements of jobs. A key conclusion worth noting is how to protect yourself from unemployment which is listed as education. The World Economic Forum estimates that those with GCSE2 have a 46% risk of losing their jobs whilst those with degrees are only at a 12% risk. What we are going to see are jobs being defragmented and the tasks that can be automated being undertaken by machines and tasks that requiring humans being consolidated into new roles. In fact the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs 2016 estimates that 65% of primary school children will end up working in jobs that don't exist yet. Part of the reason for the variation in predictions comes form the fact that there are a number of scenarios being considered.