Microsoft has developed an artificial intelligence-based technology that's capable of answering questions just like humans. The Redmond giant has also revealed that it is planning to expand the technology, so that it would be skilled enough to handle follow-up questions as well. In a recent blog post, Microsoft talked about a new technology it has created that is utilizing AI to read documents and respond to queries about such documents the way humans would. The tech company is crediting a research team at Microsoft Research Asia for developing such advanced AI. So just how human-like is Microsoft's new AI? The company proudly shared that the model it submitted reached the score of 82.650 on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD) leaderboard.

As computer scientists attempt to make machines think and learn like humans, the middle ground is being taken up by researchers attempting to use AI to read our minds. In the latest breakthrough, scientists at Kyoto University, Japan, have studied deep neural networks (AI) and discovered that computers wield the capacity to at least visualise what humans are thinking. Before we get ahead of ourselves, it's worth noting that the technology is nascent, and applies in only optimal conditions. If you recoil at someone's dubious new choice of profile picture on Facebook, your laptop isn't going to start registering your distaste and broadcasting it to the world. That being said, the new technology certainly has seemingly impressive – if ominous – potential applications.

The machine-learning models scored 82.44 on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset, a large-scale reading comprehension test with more than 100,000 questions, compared with 82.304 by humans. Stanford tests are used by several international universities and global technology firms, including Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft, to determine whether their machine learning models are able to answer the questions in the data set. Machines have already bested humans in complex games like chess, where skills such as infallible memory and raw computing power align with the intrinsic capabilities of bots. In December last year (2017), DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence programme, was able to win a game of chess after first learning how to play the game. Where computers have surpassed human ability before in games of chess by using pre-conditioned programming, DeepMind's AlphaZero program experimented by playing games against itself until it had discerned the effectiveness of all possible moves.

After introducing a bunch of new technologies and upcoming products at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018 last week, crosstown rivals Samsung and LG are now poised to launch their artificial intelligence-based air conditioners within this month. On Tuesday, South Korean news agency Yonhap learned from industry sources that the two neighboring tech companies are preparing to introduce their new smart cooling systems this January. LG has already scheduled the launch event for its advanced air conditioners later this week, while Samsung is expected to introduce its new products later this month. The idea that Samsung and LG are releasing AI-powered air conditioners shouldn't come as a surprise by now. The two home appliance manufacturers emphasized during CES that they will be pushing their Internet of Things (IoT) technology and AI technology to their upcoming products. With IoT, Samsung and LG's new air conditioners will be capable of connecting to the Internet and share data with other connected devices.

Zhang Yong, head of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, introduces the company's artificial intelligence ET Brain at a conference in December 2017.Credit: Li Xin/Xinhua via ZUMA A mountainous district in western Beijing known for its temples and mushroom production is tipped to become China's hub for industries based on artificial intelligence (AI). Last week, the Chinese government announced that it will spend 13.8 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion) on an AI industrial park -- the first major investment in its plan to become a world leader in the field by 2030. But scientists there wonder whether the proposed 55-hectare AI park, in the Mentougou district 30 kilometres away from the city centre, will be able to attract enough researchers. The government wants it to house 400 companies that will make an estimated 50 billion yuan a year developing products and services in cloud computing, big data, biorecognition and deep learning. "I don't see any top talent willing to go to work and live there," says a scientist working at an AI start-up in Beijing, who asked to remain anonymous because the government is sensitive to criticism.

Microsoft researchers have created a technology that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to read a document and answer questions about it about as well as a human. "It's a major milestone in the push to have search engines such as Bing and intelligent assistants such as Cortana interact with people and provide information in more natural ways, much like people communicate with each other," Allison Linn, senior writer at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. The team at Microsoft Research Asia reached the human parity milestone using the'Stanford Question Answering Dataset', known among researchers as'SQuAD'. It's a machine reading comprehension dataset that is made up of questions about a set of Wikipedia articles. According to the SQuAD leaderboard, Microsoft submitted a model that reached the score of 82.650 on the exact match portion.

David Hanson envisions a future in which AI-powered robots evolve to become "super-intelligent genius machines" that might help solve some of mankind's most challenging problems. If only it were as simple as that. The Texas-born former sculptor at Walt Disney Imagineering and his Hong Kong-based startup Hanson Robotics are combining artificial intelligence with southern China's expertise in toy design, electronics and manufacturing to craft humanoid "social robots" with faces designed to be lifelike and appealing enough to win trust from humans who interact with them. Hanson, 49, is perhaps best known as the creator of Sophia, a talk show-going robot partly modeled on Audrey Hepburn that he calls his "masterpiece." Akin to an animated mannequin, she seems as much a product of his background in theatrics as an example of advanced technology.

David Hanson envisions a future in which AI-powered robots evolve to become'super-intelligent genius machines' that might help solve some of mankind's most challenging problems. If only it were as simple as that. The Texas-born former sculptor at Walt Disney Imagineering and his Hong Kong-based startup Hanson Robotics are combining artificial intelligence with southern China's expertise in toy design, electronics and manufacturing to craft humanoid'social robots' with faces designed to be lifelike and appealing enough to win trust from humans who interact with them. David Hanson, from Texas, worked as a sculptor for Disney and created animatronic robots for the company's theme parks before creating his own company His'masterpiece' is Sophia, an artificial intelligence with looks based on Audrey Hepburn who is being relentlessly improved by a team of scientists Hanson, 49, is perhaps best known as the creator of Sophia, a talk show-going robot partly modeled on Audrey Hepburn that he calls his'masterpiece.' Akin to an animated mannequin, she seems as much a product of his background in theatrics as an example of advanced technology.

Alibaba has developed an artificial intelligence model that scored better than humans in a Stanford University reading and comprehension test. Alibaba Group Holding (baba) put its deep neural network model through its paces last week, asking the AI to provide exact answers to more than 100,000 questions comprising a quiz that's considered one of the world's most authoritative machine-reading gauges. The model developed by Alibaba's Institute of Data Science of Technologies scored 82.44, edging past the 82.304 that rival humans achieved. Alibaba said it's the first time a machine has out-done a real person in such a contest. Microsoft achieved a similar feat, scoring 82.650 on the same test, but those results were finalized a day after Alibaba's, the company said.

Chinese retail giant Alibaba has developed an artificial intelligence model that's managed to outdo human participants in a reading and comprehension test designed by Stanford University. The model scored 82.44, whereas humans recorded a score of 82.304. The Stanford Question Answering Dataset is a set of 10,000 questions pertaining to some 500 Wikipedia articles. The answer to each question is a particular span of text from the corresponding piece of writing. Alibaba claims that its accomplishment is the first time that humans have been outmatched on this particular test, according to a report from Bloomberg.