ISLAMABAD: Officials on Thurs day termed militarisation of space and artificial intelligence by India through western support an emerging threat for Pakistan's security. This was the upshot of a discussion hosted by the Islamabad Policy Institute on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of the 1998 nuclear tests. The two panelists at the discussion titled'Pakistan's Quest for Peace and Strategic Stability in South Asia' were Adviser to Strategic Plans Division Ambassador Zamir Akram and Director General Arms Control and Disarmament at the Foreign Office Kamran Akhtar. The panelists did reiterate their concerns about the "tenuous" strategic stability of the region and India's aggressive posture, including its plans for disarming pre-emptive strikes against Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in a conflict, but they specifically emphasised the emerging challenges which, they said, could not be ignored anymore. Ambassador Akram in his presentation noted that India was working on integrating new warfare technologies -- cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence, robotics and lethal autonomous weapons -- in its arsenal with the American support.

The ESA-CLAIRE AI Special Interest Group on Space (http://claire-ai.org/sig-space/) is organizing its first online conference on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for applications in space technology. The conference, organized in association with ECAI2020 - The 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (http://digital.ecai2020.eu/), Program: The program of the event includes 5 keynote talks, as well as a panel discussion. We have 17 contributed presentations on topics concerning different AI methods (including, but not limited to, e.g., planning, machine learning) and different areas of space technology (including, but not limited to, e.g., space operations, earth observation). These include presentations of original/on-going unpublished work, as well as of recently published work.

Google may be looking to end their involvement with robots and artificial intelligence, but that's hardly stopping Amazon. The e-commerce more retailer recently held a top secret conference for robot experts and space explorers. There were even lightsabers involved. This past week, in the lovely town of Palm Springs, California, a top secret meeting took place. This invite-only conference included experts in artificial intelligence, robotics and space exploration.