The global scientific community has come a long way since the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a concept to its modern-day appeal as a field with near-limitless potential in turning around the way activities are performed in society. The ultimate frontier for AI systems continues to be achieving a level of sophistication that matches that of the human mind. There appears to be a lot of optimism around the potential of AI in enhancing government initiatives such as Make in India, Skill India, and Digital India which have put India on the path of a technological revolution. Since the effectiveness of AI, machine learning, robotics and cognitive automation increases with a rise in the quality and quantity of training data that the systems are exposed to, conditions are ripe for India to leverage Big Data for intelligent decisions and emerge as a leader in AI. AI techniques can be applied in large-scale public initiatives ranging from crop insurance schemes to tax fraud detection to enhancing our security strategy.

One of the most exciting things about the rise of chatbots is their use of artificial intelligence -- especially machine learning -- to mass-accomplish tasks that neither an army of interns nor an army of experts could match, and to derive wisdom beyond that of the crowd by analyzing the crowd's billions of conversations with cold math. Yet anyone who chats with a few bots knows the frequent frustration: This thing doesn't understand what I'm saying. There are basically two kinds of chatbots in early 2017, while natural language processing is still learning to understand human conversational speech: Bots that risk trying to parse anything you type at them, and bots that limit your input to a few safe option buttons. Octane AI, which publishes Chatbots Magazine, currently opts for the button approach. But of course we wonder ourselves: Is that doomed?

Reiterating its commitment to boost adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), Intel India today announced a developer community initiative – AI Developer Education Programme, aimed at educating 15,000 scientists, developers, analysts, and engineers. The educational programme is also aimed at deep learning and machine learning, the tech major said in a statement. The programme was announced at the first AI Day held in Bengaluru where thought-leaders from government, industry, and the academia congregated and discussed the potential of accelerating the AI revolution in the country. Under the programme, Intel will run 60 programmes across the year, ranging from workshops, roadshows, user group and senior technology leader round-tables. Announcing the programme, Intel South Asia managing director Prakash Mallya said data center and the intelligence behind the data collected can enable government and industry to make effective decisions based on algorithms.

Global chip maker Intel on Tuesday announced a string of initiatives to boost the usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in diverse sectors by collaborating with partners and customers across the country. "Our developer education programme will educate 15,000 scientists, developers, analysts and engineers on AI technologies, including Deep Learning and Machine Learning in India," said Intel South Asia Managing Director Praksh Mallya here. AI is a software programme that makes computers and machines think intelligently and faster with more predictability than a human mind. AI is also the main workload in data centres which operate in line with the Moore's Law of computing power doubling every year. By 2020, the industry expects more servers to process data analytics than other workloads and analytics predictors will be built into every application.

LONDON • Machines or software may eventually replace a third of graduate-level jobs worldwide, with legal frameworks for regulating employment and safety becoming rapidly outdated, says a new report by the International Bar Association (IBA), a global forum for the legal profession set up in 1947. The innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics could force governments to order quotas of human workers, upend traditional working practices and pose new dilemmas for insuring driverless cars, says the report, released this week. The IBA's survey found that the previous manufacturing model of poorer, emerging economies having a competitive advantage due to cheaper workforces will soon be eroded by robot production lines and intelligent computer systems. To illustrate, a German car worker costs more than £40 (S$70) an hour, but a robot costs only between £5 and £8 an hour. "A production robot is thus cheaper than a worker in China," the report notes.

As lower-skill jobs are swept away by technology, economists are wondering what kinds of skills workers will need -- and how the economic benefits of automation will be distributed. Perhaps the hottest topic in economics these days is how far robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will go in replacing humans in the workplace -- and how quickly the changes will unfold. For decades, technology has been replacing mid-level jobs in the United States and other advanced economies. But the pace has quickened, with the effects billowing through not just automotive factories and electronics facilities but also law offices, operating rooms, and the roads we drive on. Some economists, including MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, have argued that, in addition to eliminating jobs, technology will also open the way to new ones.

You many not be a star, but you could look just like one. Scientists have created celebrity-spotting software which uses artificial intelligence to match faces to celebrities in a matter of seconds. Named Clarifai, you can test it out for yourself here - and the results may surprise you. Which one is a Jersey Shore star? The AI matched science reporter Tim Collins (left) with American television personality Ronnie Ortiz-Magro who stars in Jersey Shore (right).

Flying air taxis and'vertiports' could become fixtures across American cityscapes as companies including Uber race to introduce the technology. The taxis, called e-VTOLs or'electric vertical take off and landing(s),' are being tested by multiple tech firms including Google and Airbus, the New York Post reported. One model, the single-passenger EHang 184 Autonomous Aerial Vehicle, is due to start flying in Dubai in July. The Dubai vehicles, which are made by a Chinese drone company, can fly a passenger who weighs less than 220 pounds for up to 23 minutes. A model from Uber shows a'vertiport' and an in-transit e-VTOL or'electric vertical take off and landing.'

In the hope of making the most realistic sex doll yet, designers have created a bot that they claim can fall in love with its user. The bizarre doll, named Harmony 2.0, talks in a Scottish accent, and can be programmed with 18 different personality traits, including'shy' and'sexual.' A new video has been released that shows the doll speaking, in which she describes sex as'one of the most fascinating things in the world.' The bizarre doll, named Harmony 2.0 (pictured), talks in a Scottish accent, and can be programmed with 18 different personality traits, including'shy' and'sexual' The bizarre doll, named Harmony 2.0, talks in a Scottish accent, and can be programmed with 18 different personality traits, including'shy' and'sexual.' The doll also comes with a'persistent memory' allowing her to build up relationships with her owners.

Four years ago, Google started to see the real potential for deploying neural networks to support a large number of new services. During that time it was also clear that, given the existing hardware, if people did voice searches for three minutes per day or dictated to their phone for short periods, Google would have to double the number of datacenters just to run machine learning models. The need for a new architectural approach was clear, Google distinguished hardware engineer, Norman Jouppi, tells The Next Platform, but it required some radical thinking. As it turns out, that's exactly what he is known for. One of the chief architects of the MIPS processor, Jouppi has pioneered new technologies in memory systems and is one of the most recognized names in microprocessor design.