BRIAN KILMEADE: In his classic novel "1984," George Orwell warned the world of the dangers of government addicted to power. One where the narrative was controlled by the state and the people were forced to bend a knee. Truth-telling became the cardinal sin of Orwell's dystopian state, where a power hungry state reigned in on shutting down free speech and was all guided by what Orwell termed the Ministry of Truth. A propaganda branch of the state, in his book, whose priority was to control all forms of public information where industries like journalism, entertainment and art were all controlled by Big Brother, and the state told you what the truth was actually in their mind, which was the truth accepted. Now, the people had no say in any of it.

As I struggled for my first breath, Orwell was busily writing his vivid dystopian novel, 1984. That was 1948 and he switched the last two digits to get the title. I didn't read it until 1971 when it was essential reading on the youth revolution syllabus. We worried that the lust for power could create an authoritarian all-knowing state. Perhaps it is now time for the younger generation to take this more seriously before it gently creeps up and bites them.

The introduction of voice-activated smart home solutions – like Amazon Echo and Dot, Google Home, and Apple's HomePod – have brought with them the dream of convenient Star Trek-like interfaces where a user's spoken wish is their command. But at the same time, these devices have served as a Trojan Horse, increasingly inviting in security issues and unintended consequences. The greatest security vulnerabilities created by these products are due to the fact that, while they prominently feature advanced voice recognition, they cannot really tell who's talking. The dangers this presents are compounded when the devices feature the ability to make purchases (with few safeguards under default settings), as well as control smart home features (lights, thermostats, locks, etc.) that users do not want malicious actors to be able to manipulate. These factors have contributed to a number of actual events, which land somewhere between fascinating and frightening as to the level of harm they represent – but all should certainly provoke concern.

The likes of China -- who among other things is building cruise missiles with a certain degree of autonomy -- are nipping away at America's heels. The Pentagon has put artificial intelligence at the centre of its strategy to maintain the United States' position as the world's dominant military power, earmarking $US18 billion ($23.5 billion) over the next three years for developing the technology. Speaking from San Francisco ahead of a major AI industry conference, Prof Walsh said unlike previous arms races, much of the progress in AI development was being made by private corporations. "It's the same sort of technology that is going to go into autonomous cars which is going to be a good thing ... but giving it the right to make life or death decisions (in the battlefield) is probably a bad idea," Prof Walsh said.

Sameer Gupta knows about electronic markets. The former COO for J.P. Morgan's global electronic equities trading and Americas high touch and program trading business has been steeped in trade mechanization since graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003. He's worked as a programmer at Goldman, a business development executive at NYSE Euronext and an electronic trading implementer at J.P. Morgan. Now, he's C.O.O. of iSentium, a company that uses intelligent algorithms to turn social media sentiment into tradeable data. And he says banks are getting their approach to artificial intelligence (AI) all wrong.