A flotilla of uncrewed wolf pack drone boats has successfully been used to escort warships in a Royal Navy and Army trial. The Navy said it was a milestone demonstration of how it could utilise such technology in a real-life scenario. With camera and sensor data being fed back to Patrick Blackett, five 7.2m autonomous Rattler boats safely escorted the two ships playing the role of foreign warships during the 72-hour milestone training exercise, it said. The demonstration was a culmination of months of trials by the Navy's Disruptive Capabilities and Technology Office (DCTO) and the Fleet Experimentation Squadron (FXS). Each of the Rattler boats were operated by a two-person team, with one responsible for piloting the drone and the other monitoring and operating onboard systems, as well as helping to manage live data streams.

For any homeowner, having a helpful robot companion around the home is the stuff of sci-fi-worthy dreams. But American tech firm Nvidia is now among the companies keen to make this a reality. In California on Tuesday, the chip giant unveiled Blue, a cute advanced AI-powered robot with two legs, just 3 feet tall. Footage shows Blue – which looks like the robot from the Pixar classic Wall-E – walk onto the stage as it's introduced by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. 'Tell me that wasn't amazing,' Huang says to the audience, as Blue waddles up to him with a similar gait to a duck.

Not many plays introduce a new word to the language. One that did was Karel Čapek's RUR: Rossum's Universal Robots that had its premiere in Prague 100 years ago this month. Every time we use the word "robot" to denote a humanoid machine, it derives from Čapek's play, which coined the term from the Czech "robota" meaning forced labour. But a play that was hugely popular in its time – its Broadway premiere in 1922 had a cast that included Spencer Tracy and Pat O'Brien as robots – has now fallen into neglect. Given our fascination with artificial intelligence, it's high time we gave it another look.

ROBOT WARS AND SKYNET: IS SCI-FI BECOMING OUR REALITY? – PART 1 My Interest In Robotics And Nanotechnology, US Military UAVs/Drones And Robotic Vehicles, The Civilian Casualties Controversy, DARPA, The Darpa Urban Challenge, Roboticist William L. Whittaker, The Lunar X Prize Competition, The Positive And Negative Contributions Of Modern Technology, Wicked Heart Of Man, George W. Bush And Illegal Invasion Of Iraq, Destruction Wrought In Iraq, Americans And Body Bags, American Casualties From The Iraq War, DARPA's Aim: Protect People On The Battlefield, Remote Killing And Robots On The Battlefield Are The Wave Of The Future, Masters Of Science Fiction: Jerry Was A Man, Future Wars Fought with Automated Machines, Secret Robot Wars With No More Accountability To The Public, Callous American Public, America Was Founded On War, America Survives And Expands Her Empire Through War And Shrewd Economic Policies, Government Propaganda Machines And Malleable Gullible Public, Shock And Awe Wars, Are AI-Enabled Robot Wars In Our Future?, Current Advancements In Robotics, "Terminator" Movies And SkyNet, Will Artificial Intelligence Become A Threat?, Huge Investment in AI By The U.S. Military, The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center And Super Soldiers, Warnings From Stephen Hawking And Elon Musk, Go Down Fighting ROBOT WARS AND SKYNET: IS SCI-FI BECOMING OUR REALITY? – PART 2

Microsoft will apply Stasior's AI experience to its current programs such as Cognitive Toolkit, the company's deep learning framework that helps …

As technology advances relentlessly, the real prospect of robot wars is apparently almost upon us. The 2015 book Ghost Fleet, written by Peter Singer and August Cole, lays out a vision of a future war between China and the United States, and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in that hypothetical military conflict is not small. Drones of various types not only carry out surveillance in this novel but also play crucial roles in communications, logistics, as well as in high-intensity combat. In one memorable vignette, two American unmanned surface vehicles "following an algorithm developed from research done on the way sand tiger sharks cooperated in their hunting" successfully prosecute a Chinese nuclear submarine. Strategists familiar with the U.S. Navy's Sea Hunter program know that this ambition is not especially far-fetched. Yet, what if that book understates China's ambitions to apply AI to the future battlefield, and to undersea warfare, in particular?

Robot Wars has been axed by the BBC for a second time. The show featuring duelling robots was rebooted on BBC Two in 2016 and ran for three series. Presented by Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon since its return, it is to be scrapped to "make room for new shows", the BBC said. Soon after the announcement the hashtag #BringBackRobotWars started trending on social media. Sad to confirm the BBC's decision to de-activate our House Robots.

Robot Wars has been axed by the BBC for a second time. The show featuring duelling robots was rebooted on BBC Two in 2016 and ran for three series. Presented by Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon since its return, it is to be scrapped to "make room for new shows", the BBC said. Soon after the announcement the hashtag #BringBackRobotWars started trending on social media. Sad to confirm the BBC's decision to de-activate our House Robots.

However, for the most part, these events are not new. Our planet has always been a dangerous place to live (climate change or no). Despots and regimes have, throughout history, posed a threat to humanity. While it's easy to ignore the dangers that these pose and leave it to the scientists or politicians to fix, we all may be about to enter uncharted waters with a new threat to our species…. In July this year, Facebook had to temporarily suspend its Artificial Intelligence (AI) research when two of its'chatbots' (Alice and Bob) began communicating with each other in a language they developed, independent of their programmers.

It was Amazon that drove America's warehouse operators into the robot business. Quiet Logistics, which ships apparel out of its Devens, Mass., warehouse, had been using robots made by a company called Kiva Systems. When Amazon bought Kiva in 2012, Quiet hired scientists. In 2015 it spun out a new company called Locus Robotics, which raised $8 million in venture capital. Last year, Locus unveiled its own warehouse robotics solution called the LocusBot--first using it for its own business, then selling them to companies that ship everything from housewares to auto parts.