Last month I presented for a wide audience of healthcare experts on the state of Digital therapeutics and explained how these different solutions (aka data silos) could be leveraged together in my personal digital twin. Afterwards, the innovation architect of one of the leading Belgian payers (sickness insurance funds or mutualities) reached out to me and asked one simple question. That question was not'what is a Digital Twin'? It was'should we build a Digital Twin for each of our 4.6 million members if we want to transform from a sick fund into a health fund? Which digital tools could we trust to guide us on this journey?

At the start of the first Terminator movie, Sarah Connor, unknowingly the future mother of Earth's resistance movement, is working as a waitress when Arnold Schwarzenegger's Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator is sent back through time to kill her. But what if, instead of attempting to murder her, Skynet's android assassin instead approached the owner of Big Jeff's family restaurant, where Sarah worked, and offered to do her shifts for lower wages, while working faster and making fewer mistakes? The newly jobless Sarah, unable to support herself, drops out of college and decides that maybe starting a family in this economic climate just isn't smart. This, in a somewhat cyberbolic nutshell, is the biggest immediate threat many fear when it comes to automation: Not a robopocalypse brought on by superintelligence, but rather one that ushers in an age of technological unemployment. Some very smart people have been sounding the alarm for years. A 2013 study carried out by the Oxford Martin School suggested that some 47% of jobs in the U.S. could be automated within the next two decades -- only 12 years of which now remain following the publishing of the study.

Mining companies from around the world have begun using artificial intelligence in their operations. From safety and maintenance, to exploration and autonomous vehicles, and drills, AI is being used to navigate efficiencies and speed. With this new technology, however, comes an ever-growing need for a workforce who can navigate these new systems. Thanks to a $1.25 million grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an interdisciplinary team at the University of Nevada, Reno, has committed to graduating six doctoral and four master's degree students who will address several challenges related to major safety and health issues in mining operations. "Future mine engineers need to understand emerging technology like AI, drones and big data," Javad Sattarvand, University College of Science assistant professor of mining engineering and the project's principal investigator, said.