When Google's AlphaGo computer defeated a human champion in the insanely complex board game "Go" in March, experts were surprised by the computer's ability to recognize patterns and make quick, instinctive decisions – otherwise known to humans as intuition. Intuition, or gut instinct, is one of many hallmarks of business decision-making. Steve Jobs had no concrete evidence that the iPhone would be a success, but he saw patterns in the market, and in his mind, that convinced him that consumers would want it. AlphaGo's programmers set out to imitate that sense of intuition by first loading 150,000 prior matches between good players into the computer. Then they had AlphaGo play against itself endlessly.

Nasa launches million dollar contest to create'Valkyrie' AI robot that will accompany astronauts on ...

Computer scientists, public figures and reporters have gathered to witness or take part in a decades-old challenge. Some of the participants are flesh and blood; others are silicon and binary. Thirty human judges sit down at computer terminals, and begin chatting. To determine whether they're talking to a computer program or a real person. The event, organized by the University of Reading, was a rendition of the so-called Turing test, developed 65 years ago by British mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing as a way to assess whether a machine is capable of intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.

FILE - In this Thursday, March 26, 2015, file photo, Ford President and CEO Mark Fields speaks during the inauguration of Ford's manufacturing facility and engine plant at Sanand, near Ahmadabad, India. Fields said Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016, that Ford Motor Co. will have a fully autonomous vehicle ready to provide ride-hailing or ride-sharing services by 2021. DETROIT (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. intends to have a fully driverless vehicle -- no steering wheel, no pedals -- on the road within five years. The car will initially be used for commercial ride-hailing or ride-sharing services, with sales to consumers coming later. "This is a transformational moment in our industry and it is a transformational moment for our company," said CEO Mark Fields, as he announced the plan Tuesday at Ford's Silicon Valley campus in Palo Alto, California.

Scientists in Japan reportedly saved a woman's life by applying artificial intelligence to help them diagnose a rare form of cancer. Faced with a 60-year-old woman whose cancer diagnosis was unresponsive to treatment, they supplied an AI system with huge amounts of clinical cancer case data, and it diagnosed the rare leukemia that had stumped the clinicians in just ten minutes. The Watson AI system from IBM matched the patient's symptoms against 20m clinical oncology studies uploaded by a team headed by Arinobu Tojo at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Medical Science that included symptoms, treatment and response. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has carried out similar work, where teams of clinicians and data analysts trained Watson's machine learning capabilities with oncological data in order to focus its predictive and analytic capabilities on diagnosing cancers. IBM Watson first became famous when it won the US television game show Jeopardy in 2011.

FANUC, the world's largest maker of industrial robots, plans to start connecting 400,000 of their installed systems by the end of this year. The goal is to collect data about their operations and, through the use of deep learning, improve performance. Similarly, Kuka is building a deep-learning AI network for their industrial robots. FANUC is now moving forward to connect all its manufacturing robots. The system proactively detects and informs of a potential equipment or process problem before unexpected downtime occurs.

Six months worth of funding deals thus far in 2016 indicate that investments in robotics - equity fundings, and acquisitions - are accelerating, particularly in big deals involving Chinese money. Although Uber isn't really a robot company, they acquired a whole robotics department from CMU and have plans to work with car manufacturers to make unmanned Uber cars in the near future, hence they are included in this recap. Just last week Uber announced a strategic partnership - which included an investment of an undetermined amount - with Toyota. Uber has taken a 3.5 billion investment from a government that effectively prohibits women from driving--let alone driving for Uber. Uber also has accepted a 3.5 billion investment from a government that requires women to have male guardians.

Canadian video game star Elliot Carroza-Oyarce won the gold medal Tuesday in the first-ever EGames contest, held amid the Olympics festivities in Rio de Janeiro. Organizers hoped the hours-long "Super Smash Bros." competition would show how the growing number of competitive video gamers across the world could have their own recurring celebration in the years to come. The e-sports community has been divided over whether video games should be in the Olympics, commemorated with their own global championships, or continue as is, with disparate worldwide contests and leagues. Video game players "don't necessarily want to be boxed in with traditional athletes," said Neil Duffy, executive vice president at the British nonprofit behind the EGames. "But the level of skill and practice and effort that this competition requires really is comparable with that of a football or basketball player."

WILLIAMSBURG, Va.: The Pentagon's top weapons buyer, Frank Kendall, warned today that the US might hobble itself in future warfare by insisting on human control of thinking weapons if our adversaries just let their robots pull the trigger. Kendall even worries that Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work is being too optimistic when Work says humans and machines working together will beat robots without oversight. These are unnerving ideas -- and top Army leaders swiftly responded with concern that robots would shoot civilians if you take the human out of the loop. This is what Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Paul Selva calls the Terminator Conundrum: "When do we want to cross that line as humans? And who wants to cross it first? Those are really hard ethical questions."

In today's fast-paced digital realm, the rules are constantly changing. Traditional marketing channels have evolved into new ones, and CMOs are continually challenged. They've spent the last seven years tackling the ins and outs of new mobile and social platforms--investing in new platforms and adjusting media budgets to stay ahead. Now that they finally have everything hashed out, customers are rapidly moving away from standalone mobile apps into the more immediate, intimate world of messaging--to the tune of 100X growth in use YoY in both the US and UK. While some suggest "conversational commerce" is the next big thing--10K developers are already building on wit.ai,