At the same time, there is a growing outcry that the AI being delivered is loaded with bias and built-in violations of privacy rights. He provides ethics advice to developers working with AI because, in his own words, "tools are efficiently and effectively wielded when their users are equipped with the requisite knowledge, concepts, and training." "What matters for the case at hand is what [your team members] think is an ethical risk that needs to be mitigated and then you can get to work collaboratively identifying and executing on risk-mitigation strategies." It's reasonable to be concerned about the harm AI may unintentionally bring to customers or employees, but ethical thinking must be broader. But changing variables -- such as pandemics or political environments -- "can make AI ethically riskier than it was on the day you deployed it." At the same time, there is a growing outcry that the AI being delivered is loaded with bias and built-in violations of privacy rights.

If only there were tools that could build ethics into artificial intelligence applications. Developers and IT teams are under a lot of pressure to build AI capabilities into their company's touchpoints and decision-making systems. At the same time, there is a growing outcry that the AI being delivered is loaded with bias and built-in violations of privacy rights. There may be some very compelling tools and platforms that promise fair and balanced AI, but tools and platforms alone won't deliver ethical AI solutions, says Reid Blackman, who provides avenues to overcome thorny AI ethics issues in his upcoming book, Ethical Machines: Your Concise Guide to Totally Unbiased, Transparent and Respectful AI (Harvard Business Review Press). He provides ethics advice to developers working with AI because, in his own words, "tools are efficiently and effectively wielded when their users are equipped with the requisite knowledge, concepts, and training."

Machine-learning (ML) technology is radically changing how robots work and dramatically extending their capabilities. The latest crop of ML technologies is still in its infancy, but it looks like we're at the end of the beginning with respect to robots. Much more looms on the horizon. ML is just one aspect of improved robotics. Robotics has demanding computational requirements, and that's being helped by improvements in multicore processing power.

A swarm of robotic cockroaches and an army of spider-bots the size of your arm might seem like something out of your worst nightmare. But these menacing machines working together might just be the future of technology. The robo-roaches might eventually help search and rescue teams, and the creators of the spider bots hope they will help build planes and ships one day. VelociRoACH (pictured) is a crawling hexapod bot and research platform built by the University of California, Berkeley. VelociRoACH is a crawling hexapod bot and research platform built by the University of California, Berkeley.