Pepper the robot is taking early retirement. The humanoid's maker, Japan's SoftBank Group, has reportedly stopped producing Pepper due to weak demand. Pepper had been touted as the harbinger of a robotics revolution, but the droid's early demise show it couldn't quite live up to the hype. Attend the tech festival of the year and get your super early bird ticket now! Pepper nonetheless made a mark on the public during the android's six-year run.

First reading took place on 30 October. This stage is a formality that signals the start of the Bill's journey through the Lords. Second reading - the general debate on all aspects of the Bill - is yet to be scheduled.

The changing parameters of opportunity and risk from the emerging AI revolution run much deeper than might be generally supposed, say Professor Anthony Elliott and Julie Hare. From personal virtual assistants and chatbots to self-driving vehicles and tele-robotics, AI is now threaded into large tracts of everyday life. It is reshaping society and the economy. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has said that today's AI revolution is "unlike anything humankind has experienced before". AI is not so much an advancement of technology, but rather the metamorphosis of all technology.

Softbank's robot Pepper is set to be the first non-human to testify in front of the UK Parliament to give evidence about the fourth industrial revolution. Pepper will be attempting to explain topics such as AI and robotics to The Commons Education Select Committee. "If we've got the march of the robots, we perhaps need the march of the robots to our select committee to give evidence," Committee chair Robert Halfon toldTes. "The fourth industrial revolution is possibly the most important challenge facing our nation over the next 10, 20, to 30 years." AI and robotics will drastically change our societies, and not always for the better.