Robotic weapons have become so advanced that top military experts in the US fear the plot of the sci-fi film'Terminator' could come true. Huge technological leaps forward in drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous weapon systems must be addressed before humanity is driven to extinction by mechanical overlords like in the 1984 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, according to Pentagon chiefs. Air Force General Paul Selva, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the US Defense Department, said so-called thinking weapons could lead to: "Robotic systems to do lethal harm... a Terminator without a conscience." When asked about robotic weapons able to make their own decisions, he said: "Our job is to defeat the enemy" but "it is governed by law and by convention." He says the military insists on keeping humans in the decision-making process to "inflict violence on the enemy". "That ethical boundary is the one we've draw a pretty fine line on.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quite a trendy topic these days, especially sinceGoogle Alphago's victory over the world champion Lee Sedol has given a bright illustration of the potential of machine-learning. Today, everyone seems to focus on the conversational branch of AI (bots, like the ones we build at Recast.AI, or chatbots), but tons of other applications remain mostly unknown. This is why I've decided to dedicate this paper to a subject I'm passionate about: space exploration. Indeed, it appears that AI can be an extraordinary boost to the discovery of our universe, for instance when it comes to navigation systems, situation analysis or even data transmission. So let's try to anticipate some of the big chances that lie ahead!

NASA may be known for sending men to the moon, establishing the International Space Station, and planning for a base on Mars--but apart from astronauts, its best known spokesmen aren't men at all--they're robots. Rovers like Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity, and landers like Viking and Philae, make the perfect ambassadors into hostile, freezing, and nearly airless environments. Not only do these explorers bring back valuable scientific data from Earth's planetary neighbors, they also make perfect showcases for practical robotics. Venus is no one's idea of a vacation home. Its atmosphere is a mixture of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide, and with a surface temperature of 863 degrees Fahrenheit, only the toughest machine could possibly survive on its surface.

DARMSTADT, GERMANY – Europe's Rosetta spacecraft, due to switch off Friday after a 12-year odyssey, carried 11 scientific instruments to sniff and photograph a comet from all angles. After arriving in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it launched Philae, a separate lander, which itself had 10 high-tech gadgets, including cameras, X-ray scans, radio wave probes and a drill that never deployed. Together, the robot explorers have advanced our understanding of comets -- of which there are billions -- believed to be leftovers from the birth of our solar system some 4.6 billion years ago. "Nobody had any idea comets can be so weird until Rosetta got there," said Fabio Favata of the European Space Agency's (ESA) robotic exploration directorate. Expecting to encounter something roughly the shape of an American football, scientists were flabbergasted to observe through Rosetta's cameras that 67P resembled a rubber bath duck with a distinct "body" and "head," and a crack through its "neck."

PARIS – Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has finally spotted its tiny lander, Philae, thought to be lost forever, stuck in a ditch on the surface of a comet hurtling through space, ground controllers said Monday. I've found @Philae2014!!" the European Space Agency (ESA) tweeted on behalf of Rosetta, orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at some 682 million km (424 million miles) from Earth. The agency released a photo of the washing machine-sized robot lab on the comet's rough surface, one of its three legs thrust dramatically into the air. This was the first sighting of Philae since its rough landing in November 2014. The image was captured by Rosetta's OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on Friday and downloaded two days later -- just weeks before the official end of the groundbreaking science mission to unravel the mysteries of life on Earth. "With only a month left of the Rosetta mission, we are so happy to have finally imaged Philae and to see it in such amazing detail," Cecilia Tubiana of the OSIRIS camera team, the first person to see the images, said in a statement. The Twitter page of Philae, its communications unit switched off in July, remained silent. The 100-kg (220-pound) probe touched down on comet 67P in November 2014, after a 10-year, 6.5-billion-km (4-billion-mile) journey piggybacking on Rosetta. Philae bounced several times after its harpoons failed to fire, and ended up in a ditch shadowed from the sun's battery-replenishing rays. The tiny lab managed to conduct 60 hours of experiments and send home data before running out of power and entering standby mode on Nov. 15, 2014. "We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever.

The little robot is visible in new images downloaded from the Rosetta probe in orbit around the icy dirt-ball 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. European Space Agency (Esa) officials say there is no doubt about the identification - "it's as clear as day", one told the BBC. Philae was dropped on to the comet by Rosetta in 2014 but fell silent 60 hours later when its battery ran flat. Although it relayed pictures and data about its location to Earth, the lander's actual resting place was a mystery. It was assumed Philae had bounced into a dark ditch on touchdown - an analysis now borne out by the latest pictures, which were acquired from a distance of 2.7km from the icy body. The images from Rosetta's high-resolution Osiris camera were downlinked to Earth late on Sunday night, and have only just been processed.

They have been blamed for bringing worldwide destruction to Earth and triggering the kind of mass extinctions that wiped out the dinosaurs. But it appears we may owe our very existence to a comet that smashed into our planet billions of years ago. A spacecraft that has been orbiting a distant comet as it races through the solar system has sent back compelling evidence that suggests one of these icy objects brought the seeds of life to Earth. Comets are often thought of as harbingers of doom, causing mass extinctions and destruction on Earth. The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, which has been orbiting the duck-shaped Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since August 2014, has discovered two key building blocks of life on the enormous block of ice and dust.