Whether it's the negative portrayal by popular culture or simply the fact most of us don't really understand it, artificial intelligence (AI) is usually met with a healthy degree of scepticism. Public endorsements of the technology promising turbo-charged business processes and futuristic chatbots are matched for frequency only by gloomy premonitions of widespread job losses and a dystopian, robot-ruled future. Just recently, for example, customer services expert ContactBabel predicted it will cause the disappearance of 45,700 jobs from the sector – which employs 1.3 million people in the UK – between now and 2021. However, UK-based AI specialist EBI.AI, which claims to be among the most advanced UK labs exploring the potential of AI and chatbots, argues fears over the technology are unfounded. Here its managing director Matthew Doel explains why.

China has performed outstandingly well in scientific research and technological innovation among the G20 countries, and the country's scientific and technological strength in the field of AI is seeing rapid growth, second only to the US, a report shows. According to the report, in terms of the overall scientific and technological strength of AI, the US ranks first among the G20 countries followed by China, whose technological strength in AI has increased significantly, especially in the past five years. China has performed outstandingly well in the first three fields among the four branches of AI--machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and speech processing. But while the output of the country's scientific research has surpassed that of the US, improvements are needed in terms of the quality of the output. The report focuses on the scale of research output, academic impact, and international cooperation among the G20 countries, as an indication of China's position in the competitive landscape, as well as the challenges it faces.

Have you put a bet on the FIFA World Cup? If yes, the chances are you've made a pretty educated guess, right? You know which team has the strongest players or most favourable odds. Or maybe you've put some cash on your country's team, (which normally I'd avoid England, but given their recent performance, I could be wrong to!) Either way, you might be best casting your bets in line with San Francisco based Unanimous AI. They use a technology called Swarm AI - algorithms modelled on swarms in nature that amplifies human intelligence. By using human intelligence and artificial intelligence together, they can predict outcomes better than humans or AI acting alone.

The emotional reactions of top tennis players at Wimbledon will determine which highlights fans get to watch, and how quickly they are available. Wimbledon and its digital partner IBM have fine-tuned their artificial intelligence (AI) systems this year to help automatically edit the top action. With an average of three matches per court, per day, video from matches can add up to hundreds of hours of footage. AI-analysis uses crowd noise, player actions and match data to edit video. Those video clips are then provided to the organiser of Wimbledon, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, for uploading on its official website, apps, and social media channels.

The longevity and biotechnology industries are focusing on aging in a big way, and it's beginning to show. The fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and regenerative medicine are putting their money on combating aging and age-related diseases, and the benefits are likely to be immense. While biotechnology and AI are relatively new concepts, the announcements of funding and collaboration yesterday by and between three companies are bringing those concepts that much closer to the forefront of medicine. Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based next-generation AI company specializing in the application of deep learning for target identification, drug discovery and aging research, yesterday announced a collaboration agreement with WuXi AppTec, a leading global contract research outsourcing provider based in Shanghai, China, serving the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device industries. "It's a big step not only for Insilico Medicine but for AI and the pharmaceutical industries," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc.

BANKS have been rolling out chatbots, which allow users to bank without interacting with a human. Banking giant Citi is joining the mix, planning to launch its own chatbot in Hong Kong, except it's on (Facebook) Messenger. This makes sense for Citi. As reported by the South China Morning Post, Facebook has over five million users in Hong Kong. By rolling out the chatbot on a commonly used platform, Citi is going where its users are.

Has your controlling manager recently talked to your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system? Do you already use robotic process automation (RPA) for risk management – for example, to monitor money laundering and fraud in your company? Are your worldwide customer bookings being monitored by rule-based artificial intelligence (AI) systems in real time, and are they notifying you of any anomalies? Those who answer yes to most of these questions are among the pioneers in the application of artificial intelligence techniques and technologies in their financial management processes. Worldwide, the software industry, corporate finance departments, and financial service providers are working at full speed to find out where new AI-based processes might yield the biggest economic benefits and where AI can reproduce human labor efficiently.

LONDON (Reuters) - John McEnroe, known for his on-court outbursts, would be in his element at next month's Wimbledon tennis tournament, where every fist-pump of elation and cry of angst will be analyzed by artificial intelligence to compile video highlights.

John McEnroe, known for his on-court outbursts, would be in his element at next month's Wimbledon tennis tournament, where every fist-pump of elation and cry of angst will be analyzed by artificial intelligence to compile video highlights. The All England Lawn Tennis Club and its technology partner IBM said the Watson AI platform had been taught to recognize players' emotions, which it would combine with an analysis of crowd noise, players' movements and match data. IBM's Sam Seddon said the company was using machine learning to trying to find those seconds when players had a heightened sense of emotion after an exciting shot or rally. "If you've got the visual element from the player, and you know that it's a tight pressure point in the match, then those are the points that you are going to really target in on in the highlights package," he said in an interview.

It's been just over 30 years since the last major overall of the U.S. tax code. In that time the world has been transformed - the Soviet Union collapsed, the Berlin Wall fell, dot coms boomed and busted, terrorism struck and launched the U.S. into the longest war in its history. A financial crisis shook the country and the world to its knees, and the rise of big data, artificial intelligence, genomics, new materials, cloud computing, blockchain, the sharing and gig economies, and many other new, advanced technologies and business models signaled the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In that time, tax law and accounting practices have struggled to keep pace with innovations, sometimes leading to a wild West free for all for businesses and consumers, some of who managed to profit while others lost or were swindled of their life savings. Even today tax laws still fail to address the issues that the Age of Computer and the Internet brought, such as the internet sales tax, which may be heading to the US Supreme Court in the next year or so. As President Trump and the U.S. Congress are poised to pass and celebrate the passage of reforming the U.S. tax code for the first time in 30 years, missing from the discussion by both parties is how tax law and accounting principles should be altered to account for the realities of how AI, automation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution are reshaping businesses and the labor markets today and will continue to transform them in the years to come.