Investors backed more AI companies in the first quarter of 2016 (Q1'16) than in any other quarter, according to research from venture capital analysis firm CB Insights, which supports the idea that AI is the next major revolution in computing. In Q1'16, there were over 140 deals to startups focused on AI, CB Insights data wrote on its blog on Tuesday. Data startup Trifacta, DNA testing startup Pathway Genomics, and cognitive computing business Digital Reasoning Systems were among the AI-powered companies that raised equity funding rounds in Q1 from investors including Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, and the IBM Watson Group. So far in 2016, more than 200 AI-focused companies have collectively raised nearly 1.5 billion ( 1 billion). The pick up in AI funding activity comes as businesses look to make their platforms and systems more human-like.

Ahead of today's historic "in/out" vote for Britain, it has emerged the EU wants to introduce laws specific to robots that could give them civil rights regulations of they own, and see limits on how many jobs they could replace from humans. In scenes that could have come from the sic-fi novels of Isaac Asimov nearly 70 years ago, a recommendation of the European Parliament to the EU Commission has suggested in the future sentient AI robots could need their own rights and responsibilities, and strict laws banning them from taking over too many jobs across the Continent may become necessary. In the 1950s Asimov predicted robots would eventually have to adhere to laws, because the potential of what could develop from a combination of sophisticated mechanism, androids with human features, and artificial intelligence (AI) was too dangerous. But, it appears Brussels bureaucrats fear this fiction will become a reality and the report has even considered including a "new robot category next to natural and lawful people: the electronic person". The report suggests AI could "surpass human intelligence within a few decades". Some members of European Parliament fear that without the controls humans may no longer be in charge of their own fate.

The traditional definition of artificial intelligence is the ability of machines to execute tasks and solve problems in ways normally attributed to humans. Some tasks that we consider simple--recognizing an object in a photo, driving a car--are incredibly complex for AI. Machines can surpass us when it comes to things like playing chess, but those machines are limited by the manual nature of their programming; a 30 gadget can beat us at a board game, but it can't do--or learn to do--anything else. This is where machine learning comes in. Show millions of cat photos to a machine, and it will hone its algorithms to improve at recognizing pictures of cats.

Artificial intelligence – fuelled by big data – and blockchain tech, are some of the technologies that could impact our world, according to Sarwant Singh, senior parter at Frost & Sullivan. Speaking at the Global Community of Growth, Innovation and Leadership (GIL Europe) conference, held in London today, Singh discussed mega trends in the technological world in an attempt to examine their implications on businesses and societies. "I believe we are now entering the cognitive area," said Singh in reference to artificial intelligence, adding: "We'll move towards super intelligence [in the future]. It is not available today". By super intelligence, Singh was referring to the possibility that computers may eventually be able to function similarly to the human brain.

Robots are already putting a variety of jobs under threat from security guards to office managers, but soon they could be venturing into the sex industry too. Women and men could begin swapping human partners for androids within the next 10 years, according to predictions by a futurologist. Dr Ian Pearson, an inventor who has made a career out of predicting the future for PR firms, has produced a report on the future of sex. Sex with robots could soon replace human intimate relationships according to a recent report. It claims that intercourse with robots could overtake human intercourse by 2050.

I just asked a bot to tell me how much I spent on coffee this past month. And a few moments later, it replied. Certainly, I drink an awful lot of coffee. After asking the bot for a bit more information, I can happily say I spent at least some of that nearly two hundred dollars on chopped fruit and the occasional pastry. The bot didn't actually explain this, but it did give me list all payments to coffee shops, which made things clear.

You know who you are.) These researchers decided to watch people's brains with an fMRI in order to glean some hints that could be used for a better navigational algorithm.] I wrote earlier this year about some of the ways that AI is helping us to do our jobs better. One of these is in more efficient route planning to help service personnel get to jobs faster. It's the kind of travelling salesman problem that has been challenging people since the 1930s due to the computational difficulties involved.

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Insilico Medicine will unveil a newly-developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) drug discovery engine at the Re-Work Machine Intelligence Summit in Berlin, Germany, to be held June 29-30, 2016. The AI engine is capable of predicting therapeutic use, toxicity, and adverse effects of thousands of molecules. Insilico says that this drug-discovery engine has the potential to transform the pharmaceutical industry and double the number of drugs on the market by "developing multi-modal deep-learned and parametric biomarkers as well as multiple drug-scoring pipelines for drug discovery and drug repurposing, and hypothesis and lead generation." By using AI coupled with a deep understanding of pharmaceutical R&D processes, Insilico hopes to overcome hurdles to drug discovery, such as failure rates due to irreproducible experiments with poor choices of animal models and the inability to translate the results from animal models directly to humans. Up until now, Insilico has dealt mainly with nutraceuticals and cosmetics, signing an exclusive agreement with Life Extension, a vendor of major nutraceutical products, to develop a set of geroprotectors, which are natural products that mimic a young, healthy state in multiple old tissues.

Kaname Hayashi is known as the "father of Pepper." Hayashi is the "father of Pepper," the charming humanoid robot from Japanese carrier SoftBank Mobile and French company Aldebaran Robotics. Pepper, with its circular doe eyes and welcoming smile, is billed as a robot that can read your emotions. It's available for sale and has even enrolled in school. Like any proud parent whose kids leave home, Hayashi had a void to fill.