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Great article - worth a read through...

""The technology is also useful in cases where the driver loses consciousness and has let go of the steering wheel. If such an event occurs, the car will independently pull over. Temporary control of the car is the second wave of driver perception-enhancement - while we are still on the first wave, which culminates with the car's ability to break on its own in case of emergency. Therefore, the next phase is automated driving, the instant you let go of the wheel.""

"Google has accused Hollywood of attempting to "secretly censor the internet" by reviving the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) to enable wholesale site-blocking."

"But one church in Lichfield, Staffordshire, faced a different fundraising problem: to pay a £6,000 bill demanded for photographs used on its website. The case came to the attention of Gavin Drake, the communications director for the diocese's 600 churches. In creating the church's website, a volunteer had included a couple of images sourced from Getty, a large picture agency, without paying for them. A couple of months later, Getty sent the church a demand for £6,000."

"MEMS and nanotechnology utilize seemingly impossibly small mechanisms in order to sense, control and respond to a particular environment - these technologies can sense mechanical information as well as biological data. Many MEMS sensors function by detecting small electrical currents that provide data on things such as position, geomagnetic field, acceleration and more, and then pass this information along to other mechanisms within a device or machine. "

"Atlas is a semi-autonomous system. The operator tells the robot where to be and what position to take, such as where to put its hands on a vacuum cleaner, and then the robot comes up with a plan of how to do that. For some chores Atlas's actions are logical and human-like. Others require re-thinking of how to get the job done in a way that its quite different to the way a person would perform the action."

"The Future of Jobs Report arrives as the rising tide of automation is expected to displace millions of American workers in the long term and as corporations, educational institutions and elected officials grapple with a global technological shift that may leave many people behind. The report, published Monday, envisions massive changes in the worldwide workforce as businesses expand the use of artificial intelligence and automation in their operations. Machines account for 29 percent of the total hours worked in major industries, compared with 71 percent performed by people. By 2022, however, the report predicts that 42 percent of task hours will be performed by machines and 58 percent by people"

"Anouk van Maris, a robot cognition specialist who is researching ethical human-robot interaction, has found that comfort levels with robots vary greatly depending on location and culture. "It depends on what you expect from it. Some people love it, others want to run away as soon as it starts moving," she says. "The advantage of a robot that looks human-like is that people feel more comfortable with it being close to them, and it is easier to communicate with it. The big disadvantage is that you expect it to be able to do human things and it often can't.""

"Should we embrace these new trust algorithms? Baveja and Shapiro acknowledge the responsibility that comes with trying to take ethical decisions and translate them into code. How much of our personal information do we want trawled through in this way? And how comfortable are we with letting an algorithm judge who is trustworthy?"

"She said: "I don't think it should ever be used. It is one of, if not the, greatest threats to individual freedom, partly because of the intimacy of the information it takes and hands to the state without your consent, and without even your knowledge, and partly because you don't know what is done with that information.""

""The disproportionally high arrest rates for members of the black community make the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement problematic," the letter reads, "because it could serve to reinforce this trend."

"In October 2016, algorithms reacted to negative news headlines about Brexit negotiations by sending the pound down 6% against the dollar in under two minutes, before recovering almost immediately. Knowing which particular headline, or which particular algorithm, caused the crash is next to impossible. When one haywire algorithm started placing and cancelling orders that ate up 4% of all traffic in US stocks in October 2012, one commentator was moved to comment wryly that "the motive of the algorithm is still unclear"."

"With 850 million children worldwide shut out of schools, tech evangelists claim now is the time for AI education. But as the technology's power grows, so too do the dangers that come with it"

"The ethics of Facebook's micro-targeted advertising was thrust into the spotlight this week by a report out of Australia. The article, based on a leaked presentation, said that Facebook was able to identify teenagers at their most vulnerable, including when they feel "insecure", "worthless", "defeated" and "stressed"."

"However, there is some concern about how accurate these new procedures will be. Apparently the facial recognition technology doesn't recognize all people will the same accuracy. White women and black people aren't as easily recognized as white men, meaning there could be some mismatching of identities. Some are also concerned that this is crossing the line in terms of passenger privacy."