All new UK homes will be off the gas grid by 2025 says UK government
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As countries try to hit their emissions targets fossil fuels are under fire, now the UK government is calling time on domestic gas supplies. Connecting new homes to the UK’s gas grid could be banned after 2025 as the UK government, just like many...
Dutch man, 69, applies to legally change his age to 49 years old
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As anti-aging technologies arrive one day the elderly may well have the bodies and minds much younger than their years, and that will cause a societal dilemma. There’s a lot more than you might realise going on in the world of ageing, or more...
EU law makers are thinking of letting people sue robots
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As automation, in the form of autonomous hardware and software based robots, becomes more commonplace, law makers are debating who should be responsible for their actions. If a robot, acting autonomously, injures or otherwise wrongs a human, who will be held responsible? Some European...
UK Government mulls creating the world’s first Robo-Regulator for fintechs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Regulating industries and companies is an increasingly complicated task, and some are arguing that it’s one that should be automated and given to the machines, but that opens up its own set of challenges. The love affair British politicians have enjoyed with fintech since...
Israeli Robo-Lawyer trashes top US lawyers in head to head competition
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today we have contracts for everything it seems, and on top of that lawyers are expensive, and not everyone has access to them, Robo-Lawyer AI’s are helping democratise law and change that paradigm. Lawyers are pretty good at law-related activities, after all, it’s their...
Microsoft calls for a “Digital Geneva convention” to defang cyber attacks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In some respects we are starting to see the advent of open cyber warfare between competing sovereign nations and unless someone steps in the problem is only going to escalate. Last year cyber the rise of warfare prompted the US Government to implement a...
UK Government announces self-driving cars to hit the roads by 2021, prepares 1 million drivers for redundancy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world around us is changing rapidly and the UK Government has just become the first government in the world to announce plans to start the transition to self-driving vehicles, quoting it’s going to be “painful and challenging.” Following in the footsteps of Dubai...
The FDA just approved it’s first trackable smart pill, more to follow
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Not everyone takes their medication but now companies and doctors can tell precisely when and if a patient has taken their prescribed meds, but it opens up a whole set of questions about ethics, privacy and security. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...
Maritime regulator gets set to allow autonomous ships on the high seas
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As new autonomous ship technologies race ahead we mustn’t forget that nothing happens unless the regulators allow it, but now the dam’s bursting. It can be said that the majority of people and companies normally see change coming well before it arrives, take the...
San Fransisco mulls introducing America’s first “Robot Tax”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the level of automation around the world increases governments are increasingly considering taxing robots, and, more specifically, machines that “automate” human jobs. Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots and other Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools are now handling more and more of the work that...
Blockchain, EU GDPR privacy law could finally give users back control of their privacy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF None of us have any control whatsoever over our personal privacy and the information that companies store on us, but Europe’s new GDPR law is about to change all that and as companies struggle to meet the deadline a paradigm shift in the way we...
South Korea introduces the world’s first “Robot Tax”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Experts and governments are predicting that a rising tide of automation will have a dramatic impact on today’s workforce and lower tax receipts, and taxing the machines and robots driving the revolution is becoming an increasingly popular idea. South Korea has introduced what is...
UN cancels crucial 2017 debate on autonomous warfare because Brazil owes it money
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Noone wants war, and arguably noone should want autonomous war where AI’s and robots make the decisions, but for the fifth year in a row the UN has cancelled it’s scheduled debate, over the funding of the meetings. Share your opinion, is this an...
A river in New Zealand was just granted human rights to protect it from pollution
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In an age where environmental destruction is still commonplace a river in New Zealand is about to reap the benefits of being given the same rights as a human being. In a world first, and in an age where we are beginning to grant...
China vows to replace 67,000 taxis with electric vehicles
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many cities around the world, including London, are struggling with high pollution levels which affect the health of their citizens, Beijing’s new mandate will help alleviate it. Many people think that taxis are a bane, and depending on where you live many of them...
So long Asimov’s Laws, say hello to the 23 Laws of Robotics
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Whether they’re hardware based, or software based, machines are getting increasingly capable, creative, intelligent and resilient – and that has experts worried, so now they’ve created a new set of laws to try to guide the technology’s development and trajectory. Ever since people first...
Europe will debate robot rights, ethics and AI kill switches in February
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Machines are increasingly becoming autonomous and intelligent and it’s one of the greatest dangers humanity has ever faced, later this year law makers in Europe will finally determine how we govern, monitor, manage and tax them in order to minimise the damage to society. ...
Robots to get legal recognition as Europe votes to classify them as ‘Electronic persons’
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The move by the EU to classify robots as “Electronic persons” is a watershed moment. It signifies a significant attitude shift in policy and the way that new robo-systems are viewed, and paves the way for new laws and new regulations. With robots and...
