Nadezhda Surova, head of the "Artificial Intelligence" project at the National Technological Initiative, has explained which areas in IT industry are popular among the younger generation and which countries are interested in Russian education. Sputnik: What areas in the digital economy do schoolchildren and students choose? Nadezhda Surova: We realize that the main priority now is data management – Big Data – and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The country which will become the first in creating a platform-based solution with the use of data will achieve technological superiority. Our students understand this, that is why specialties involved in Data Science are most in demand now in all areas of digital economy – IT, humanities etc.

Professor Bostrom spoke about AI and its safety on the sidelines of Russia's main event in the field of technological entrepreneurship - the annual Open Innovations forum - held by Skolkovo's Innovation Center. Sputnik: In what area can we expect to see "unicorns" in the future? Nick Bostrom: They can crop up in any part of the economy really, as long as the sector has a certain size that could bring new innovations and new ideas that would be successful enough to become worth a billion. Nick Bostrom: I think the highly salient areas which are sort of big ambitions tech things on the Internet. But a lot of other parts of the economy that also are quite large and have less of a public profile.

One thing we can be sure about AI -- because we are told it so often and at so increasingly high a pitch -- is that whatever it actually is, the national interest demands more of it. And we need it now, or else China will beat us there, and we certainly wouldn't want that, would we? What does it look like, how would it work, and how would it change our society? The race is on, and if America doesn't start taking AI seriously, we're going to find ourselves the losers in an ever-widening Dystopia Gap. Savage and Nancy Scola exemplifies the mix of maximum alarm and minimum meaning that's become so typical in our national (and nationalist) discussion around artificial intelligence.

AI, which is supposed to stand for "artificial intelligence," now spans applications from cameras to the military to medicine. One thing we can be sure about AI -- because we are told it so often and at so increasingly high a pitch -- is that whatever it actually is, the national interest demands more of it. And we need it now, or else China will beat us there, and we certainly wouldn't want that, would we? What does it look like, how would it work, and how would it change our society? The race is on, and if America doesn't start taking AI seriously, we're going to find ourselves the losers in an ever-widening Dystopia Gap.

After 15 years of diligently exploring the surface of Mars, the Opportunity rover finally succumbed to the elements and went offline Feb. 13. As obituaries and tributes to "Oppy" surfaced, fans caught a glimpse into the robot's final moments: the last picture it sent, its last words, the last-ditch attempts to revive it. Scientists wept as they said their final farewells. As employees swayed and embraced, mission control sent one final transmission to Oppy: Billie Holiday's 1944 recording of "I'll Be Seeing You." The muted, intimate timbre of Holiday's voice helped millions say goodbye to "the little robot who could": I'll find you in the morning sun, I'll be looking at the moon, But I'll be seeing you.

China is by far the world's largest consumer of microchips and semiconductor circuits, importing $200 billion worth of these products annually. But the Chinese authorities worry that the country's reliance on import threatens national security and hampers the development of a thriving technology sector. The state-backed China IC Industry Investment Fund, created three years ago in a bid to support domestic chipmakers, is reportedly in talks with government agencies and corporations to raise at least 150 billion yuan for its second fund vehicle and intends to begin deploying capital in the second half of the year. The country envisions spending those funds over 10 years, investing in a wide range of sectors, from processor design and manufacturing to chip testing and packaging, in hopes to achieve a leading position in semiconductor industry. Internet technology expert Liu Xingliang believes China has a chance to reach the goal.

"The sensationalist coverage these stories receive isn't very helpful and obscures the main issues," author Chris Middleton told Sputnik. "We're not talking about C-3P0 sitting at your desk, we're talking about smart devices, industrial machines, drones, autonomous vehicles, plus software that automates technology." Accountancy firm PwC analysed 200,000 jobs across 29 countries and suggests the first wave of job losses will begin in the early 2020s. "When you look at financial services, a lot of jobs are relatively routine jobs such as data analysis," said PwC chief economist John Hawksworth who suggests the closure of bank branches is indicative of the current situation. Around six and eight percent of positions in the financial sector could be lost because "a lot of jobs are relatively routine jobs such as data analysis," he said.

Artificial intelligence, like every technology, comes with benefits and risks, according to Moshe Vardi, who in an interview with Radio Sputnik said that technology and automation have been replacing human jobs for a long time now. "Machines were stronger than us, more powerful than us, now they are gradually becoming smarter than us. And that means to compete with machines, humans have to get better and better," Vardi said. "China has tried it and the West arose and continued to develop while China stagnated. So unless we live in a world where somehow we can control everyone it's unlikely that we will be able to stop the advancements of technology," Vardi told Sputnik.

Last week, Vladimir Putin told students, "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." That caught the interest of noted AI phobe / profiteer Elon Musk who tweeted, simply and ominously: "It begins…" But the CIA's head of technology development has a different take. Dawn Meyerriecks is less worried about rival nation states might use AI to outflank the United States than about getting U.S. leaders to believe what AI is telling them. "If I want to increase [ certainty in a particular AI-aided assessment] what goes into it? What do I need in order to make a really good assessment on the back-end because that tells me what sort of collection I need to raise confidence to go address national leadership?"

Many readers are unfamiliar with the history of Sputnik The effect of Soviet Union's achievement in launching the first man made satellite (i.e. Sputnik created the urgency to upgrade America's science and technology infrastructure: This was viewed by a shocked audience of over 200 million people. A vast majority of that audience was from countries were the game of Go is popularly played (i.e. To have a Western developed automation arrive and vanquish a legendary player like Lee Sedol certainly shocked the population to its core. Chinese authorities were concerned enough about the social ramifications that they hastily imposed a country-wide ban on the live-streaming of the event. This kind of shock of one's core view of the world is certainly to galvanize serious action.