This is not the first time we have discussed artificial intelligence in the Inside HR Tech column, and it quite likely won't be the last time. Judging by my unscientific but still reasonably accurate measure of the relative importance of an HR-technology topic or trend based on how much attention it received at recent HR Technology Conferences, I reckon that AI has emerged in the last five years as the single most discussed topic in HR tech. If it seems to you that everyone is talking or writing or speaking about AI in HR and in the workplace, you are pretty much correct. Even so, the topic feels so important for HR, for employees, for workplaces, that it may not (yet) be possible to pay too much attention to AI. That's the conclusion I reached recently while reading some of the latest applications of AI technology in the workplace.

The Dutch data protection agency has asked Microsoft's lead privacy regulator in Europe to investigate ongoing concerns it has attached to how Windows 10 gathers user data. Back in 2017 the privacy watchdog found Microsoft's platform to be in breach of local privacy laws on account of how it collects telemetry metadata. After some back and forth with the regulator, Microsoft made changes to how the software operates in April last year -- and it was in the course of testing those changes that the Dutch agency found fresh reasons for concern, discovering what it calls in a press release "new, potentially unlawful, instances of personal data processing". Since the agency's investigation of Windows 10 started a new privacy framework is being enforced in Europe -- the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) -- which means Microsoft's lead EU privacy regulator is the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), where its regional HQ is based. This is why the Dutch agency has referred its latest concerns to Ireland.

Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers or the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior. Despite its nascent nature, the ubiquity of AI applications is already transforming everyday life for the better. Whether discussing smart assistants like Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, applications for better customer service or the ability to utilize big data insights to streamline and enhance operations, AI is quickly becoming an essential tool of modern life and business. In fact, according to statistics from Adobe, only 15 percent of enterprises are using AI as of today, but 31 percent are expected to add it over the coming 12 months, and the share of jobs requiring AI has increased by 450 percent since 2013. Leveraging clues from their environment, artificially intelligent systems are programmed by humans to solve problems, assess risks, make predictions and take actions based on input data.

At Hugging Face, we experienced first-hand the growing popularity of these models as our NLP library -- which encapsulates most of them -- got installed more than 400,000 times in just a few months. However, as these models were reaching a larger NLP community, an important and challenging question started to emerge. How should we put these monsters in production? How can we use such large models under low latency constraints? Do we need (costly) GPU servers to serve at scale?

AI can also unlock new insights from the massive amounts of complex climate simulations generated by the field of climate modeling, which has come a long way since the first system was created at Princeton in the 1960s. Of the dozens of models that have since come into existence, all represent atmosphere, oceans, land, cryosphere, or ice. But, even with agreement on basic scientific assumptions, Claire Monteleoni, a computer science professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a co-founder of climate informatics, points out that while the models generally agree in the short term, differences emerge when it comes to long-term forecasts.

Pentagon and industry developers are now testing a new series of hypersonic weapons prototypes as part of a large-scale effort to fast-track the weapons to service. The U.S. acceleration of the weapons, which includes air flights, ground-firing, wind-tunnels, simulation and various kinds of prototyping, is widely discussed as much needed response to Russian and Chinese progress in the area of hypersonics. Flight tests, demonstrations, ground testing and advanced air-vehicle configuration prototyping are all providing data for an Air Force, DARPA and Raytheon hypersonic weapons program called Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapons Concept, or HAWC. DARPA statements on the program, citing program manager Andrew Knoedler, identify key areas of developmental emphasis to include "hydrocarbon scramjet-powered propulsion to enable sustained hypersonic cruise." DARPA information, mirrored by Raytheon weapons developers, explains that "sustaining" speeds at 5-times the speed of sound is a technical characteristic to hypersonic weapons...and the HAWC in particular.

Billionaire Jack Ma said Thursday envisions a bright new future for the chronically overworked: a 12-hour work week. According to Ma, a Chinese business magnate who helms mega-retailer, Alibaba, meteoric advances in artificial intelligence and reforms in education could mean many workers will eventually work only a quarter of their current weekly hours. Theoretically, that would mean working as little as three days per week for four hours each day, he said inconversation with Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, at an AI conference in China. Alibaba chief, Jack Ma (pictured above) thinks that with the proper advances in AI and the education system that workers could soon enjoy a 12-hour work week. 'For the next 10, 20 years, every human being, country, government should focus on reforming the education system, making sure our kids can find a job, a job that only requires three days a week, four hours a day,' Ma said at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai Thursday according to Bloomberg.

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Outspoken tech billionaires and entrepreneurs Jack Ma and Elon Musk may share some similarities. But their views on artificial intelligence (AI) and their interest in space exploration don't seem to be one of them. When the duo spoke on stage for the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Thursday, Ma, chairman and cofounder of Alibaba (BABA), and Musk, CEO of Tesla (TSLA), avoided issues like trade and U.S.-China relations but focused on AI, just one of a series of topics presented by the organizer. It was clear that Ma doesn't seem to share Musk's passion for Mars and is not that concerned about AI one day outsmarting people. "When people talk about AI and say human beings will be controlled by machines -- I never think that. It's impossible," said Ma. "My view is that a computer may be clever. A human being is much smarter. Clever is very academic is knowledge-driven. "Definitely not," Musk immediately reacted. "Computers are much smarter than humans on so many dimensions." Musk has warned about the potential dangers of AI, even though his diverse investments, from Tesla to Neuralink, rely heavily on nascent technology. "The first thing you should assume is that we are very dumb, and that we can definitely make things smarter than ourselves," said Musk. Ma's reason for believing in human intelligence is simple -- humans invented computers and AI. "Computer is only one of the collaborative tools that humans created.