Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

..."Law enforcement agencies are increasingly interested in trying to detect plans for disruptive events from social media, and also to monitor activity at large gatherings of people to analyze security," the study argues. "There is significant work on crowd simulations to determine how crowds can be controlled. At the same time, legitimate concerns have been raised about the potential for law enforcement agencies to overreach and use such tools to violate people’s privacy."

And when it comes to employment and the workplace, the study sees AI as replacing tasks rather than jobs, while also helping to create new kinds of jobs.

The authors conclude by saying they’ve found no cause for concern that AI poses an imminent threat to humanity. No machines with self-sustaining long-term goals and intent have been developed, they write, nor are they likely to be in the near future....

As we reach the middle of the 21st century, half the population of the world will lose their job to a machine. Yes, this is another 'robots will take our jobs ' story.

The latest comes from Moshe Vardi, professor at Rice University , Houston, who delivered a talk to the American Association for the Advancement of Science , exploring the question: "If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?"

Future belongs to the machines
Vardi reckons that half of workers across the globe will be replaced by machines within the next 30 years, wiping out middle-class jobs and "exacerbating inequality". He noted that robots would take over in many spheres of life, including automated driving and sex robots. As the Guardian reports, he also observed that this future is likely to mean humans have much more leisure time — indeed we may only work a handful of hours per week....

Mastercard has announced that it is powering the first commercial application of SoftBank’s humanoid robot Pepper, creating a service in Pizza Hut restaurants in Asia.

The service will have Mastercard’s digital payment service MasterPass as the core and Pizza Hut, the first brand to come on board to test the service, aims to trial Pepper over the next few months with the goal for it to be live in-store in Asian restaurants by the end of 2016.

Tobias Puehse, vice president, innovation management, digital payments and labs at MasterCard, said: “Consumers have come to expect personalized service, customized offers and simple and seamless processes both in-store and online. The app’s goal is to provide consumers with more memorable and personalized shopping experience beyond today’s self-serve machines and kiosks, by combining Pepper’s intelligence with a secure digital payment experience via MasterPass.

”Pepper will be programmed to launch on greeting, or when activated via a QR code or once the MasterPass has been activated within the app. Pepper will give personalised offers and suggestions, as well as helping with checking out and paying....