Bengaluru: Online retailer Amazon India is fast increasing the adoption of machine learning technology in order to cut product returns, improve the speed and accuracy of product deliveries, provide more relevant search results and improve efficiency in other areas of its business. Inc. is one of the global leaders in artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, along with the likes of Google, Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. In India, the company has been relatively slow in using machine learning, mostly because it launched in the country only in June 2013. Now that it's accumulating increasing quantities of data on customers, the company is increasing the adoption of machine learning in its business. "There are a lot of problems that are India-specific where you need machine learning," said Rajeev Rastogi, director, machine learning at Amazon India (Amazon Seller Services Pvt.

Conventional wisdom decrees that this dual-track approach isn't sustainable, and that low- to middle-skilled workers will eventually make way for robots. A landmark 2013 study by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University suggests that, in the coming decades, 47% of total US employment will be at risk of automation. Similarly, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned that 56% of total employment in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam is "at high risk of displacement due to technology over the next decade or two."

Imagine meeting someone you should know but whose name you can't recall. Now imagine you're wearing a pair of glasses that will scan social media for a match on their face and display their name in front of one of your eyes within two seconds, sparing you embarrassment. Activate the glasses' camera function, look at an object and in seconds the brand, model number, its price on e-commerce websites and reviews of the product will scroll in front of that same eye. If you think that sounds like science fiction, think again: this is what Rokid Glass promises to do. In the words of Rokid's Reynold Wu, they will offer "an anytime, anywhere AR visual overlay in front of your eyes [that] effectively synthesises voice interaction, AI, and image AI".

At KDnuggets, we try to keep our finger on the pulse of main events and developments in industry, academia, and technology. We also do our best to look forward to key trends on the horizon. To close out 2017, we recently asked some of the leading experts in Big Data, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning for their opinion on the most important developments of 2017 and key trends they 2018. This post considers what happened in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence this year, and what may be on the horizon for 2018. "What were the main machine learning & artificial intelligence related developments in 2017, and what key trends do you see in 2018?"

IBM on Tuesday unveiled a chip that is designed for the new Artificial Intelligence-powered world that requires crunching of humongous amounts of data at high speeds to get the most accurate results. Called POWER9, it uses some of the latest technologies, resulting in two significant advantages: one, increased bandwidth, and two, ability for main processors and accelerators to work coherently and simultaneously on data. Stating that it is a one of its kind in the industry, Dipankar Sarma, distinguished engineer, Linux Technology Center, IBM Systems, said the new chip doubles the bandwidth by which one can get more data really fast. "We significantly increase the ability to process data; five to 10 times faster," he said. He spoke of two applications.

For now, at least, we have better things to worry about. Some in Silicon Valley are even calling for a basic minimum income provided by the government for everyone, under the assumption that work will become scarce. But many economists are skeptical of these claims, because the notion that the the economy offers a fixed amount of work has been debunked time and time again over the centuries and current economic data show no signs of a productivity boom. Fortunately, we don't need to divine the future of the labor market in order to prepare for it. Check out http://www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app. Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE

Intellectual property may be the legal term for creations, including literary or artistic, but there is something inherently human about it as well. It has long been taken that only human beings are capable of being intelligent in its fullest form, and the concept of intellectual property strives to protect the product of such human intelligence. This is reflected in a number of intellectual property laws. But what if a piece of art, music, literature, photography or other product were not created by a human mind at all, but by a machine embedded with artificial intelligence (AI)? But, ultimately, the judge rejected the claim.

An AI program by China's Alibaba Holdings based on a deep neural network model has scored higher than humans in a reading comprehension test. As a result, bots may be developed to replace humans employed in customer service positions. Read more: Op-Ed: Alibaba's AI software beats humans at reading comprehension

Fri 19 Jan 2018 09.09 EST Last modified on Sat 20 Jan 2018 01.44 EST Russia responded on 5 January to an attack by a swarm of drones targeting a Russian airbase in north-western Syria and a naval station on the Mediterranean Sea. The multi-drone attack, which is suspected to have been launched by militants, is the first of its kind, representing a new threat from terrorist groups. The use of a swarm attack demonstrates a militant capability, which was previously limited to states, to simultaneously control and coordinate several commercial drones at one time using a GPS unit. This development may send viewers of the science-fiction series Black Mirror into hiding, but it should prompt professional militaries to double down on countermeasures, specifically the creation of electronic jamming tech. Swashbuckling drones operated by rebels and militants have been shoring up the frontlines of conflict internationally, in some cases braving the choppy waters off the coast of Yemen, and in others crowding the skies over Syria and Iraq.

On this week's Tech Tent we hear why China's determination to be a leading player in artificial intelligence could lead to tensions with the United States. We have two other reports on this week's programme.