But it wasn't long after an independent programmer posted it to Twitter last week that other researchers started to notice a glaring flaw. When prompted with Barack Obama's blurry likeness, it returned a white man's face with little resemblance to the former president. An image of @BarackObama getting upsampled into a white guy is floating around because it illustrates racial bias in #MachineLearning. Just in case you think it isn't real, it is, I got the code working locally. Here is me, and here is @AOC.

Microsoft president Brad Smith speaks at the 2017 annual Microsoft shareholders meeting in Bellevue, WA. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) This morning Microsoft President Brad Smith posted an essay on the company's blog that raises important questions about the human rights challenges related to facial recognition technology. Microsoft, and in particular, Smith, have led the tech industry in addressing human rights issues that inevitably grow from the spreading use of emerging technologies. As Smith points out, these new technological capacities are often a force for good, but are also subject to manipulation and can cause great harm. What is clear is that these new technologies are now part of our lives and will play an ever-greater role in the future. Smith rightly focuses on vexing challenges relating to the governance of facial recognition technologies, a rapidly evolving area which requires new models in which both governments and companies assume greater responsibilities.

The cheaper, flexible machines that are emerging are designed to be more adaptive. From driverless cars and drones to the "cobots" that work alongside humans in industrial settings, they try to sense and adapt to their surroundings. Like Tug (a robot that moves supplies around hospitals), Savioke (which handles deliveries to hotel rooms) and Locus Robotics (which operates in warehouses), they are moving into the service industries. In industrial settings--still the main venue for robot investment--they are moving out of the cages and into a far wider range of roles.

"Huge difference between a genuinely self-deprecating egoless comedic patter and one that is self-serving. And knowing you are very good at something and telling the world about it is not necessarily ego-driven - Roger Federer admits he is a great tennis player, Alan Partridge has no shame admitting his talents as a broadcaster. The world is a better place for both." "Whilst I totally disagree with requiring women to wear heels and make up, I have been encouraged not to wear heels by male colleagues who I tower over in flats. The comments have never been explicit but I think there is something of a double-standard going on.