Hey, Google, enough is enough already. Google was caught having contractors listening in to our conversations from its personal assistant, which sounds bad until you realize Google wasn't alone in this. Apple and Facebook were doing the same thing. And this week, Microsoft got stung by Vice's Motherboard, and now admits it, too, listens. The companies, which also include Amazon, have said they do this on a limited basis to learn and make their assistants better.

Over the last few years, automation has gained immense popularity in various industries. And the manufacturing industry sits on the cutting edge of automation technology, ahead of other industries. With automation, manufacturing companies have revolutionized the way activities were once performed. With autonomous systems coming into the picture, human participation and involvement have reduced significantly. As a result, work gets done faster and more importantly, with greater precision. Though automation changes the nature of employment, it has brought in huge profit opportunities to the manufacturing industry.

A new generation of swarming robots which can independently learn and evolve new behaviors in the wild is one step closer, thanks to research from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE). The team used artificial evolution to enable the robots to automatically learn swarm behaviors which are understandable to humans. This new advance published today in Advanced Intelligent Systems, could create new robotic possibilities for environmental monitoring, disaster recovery, infrastructure maintenance, logistics and agriculture. Until now, artificial evolution has typically been run on a computer which is external to the swarm, with the best strategy then copied to the robots. However, this approach is limiting as it requires external infrastructure and a laboratory setting.

Technology experts predict the rate of adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning will skyrocket in the next two years. These advanced technologies will spark unprecedented business gains, but along the way enterprise leaders will be called to quickly grapple with a smorgasbord of new ethical dilemmas. These include everything from AI algorithmic bias and data privacy issues to public safety concerns from autonomous machines running on AI. Because AI technology and use cases are changing so rapidly, chief information officers and other executives are going to find it difficult to keep ahead of these ethical concerns without a roadmap. To guide both deep thinking and rapid decision-making about emerging AI technologies, organizations should consider developing an internal AI ethics framework.

Amazon uses forecasting to make sure that the right product is in the right place at the right time by predicting demand for hundreds of millions of products every day. Amazon Forecast uses this same technology to build precise forecasts for virtually any business condition, including product demand and sales, infrastructure requirements, energy needs, and staffing levels – with predictions that are up to 50% more accurate than traditional methods. Amazon Forecast is easy to use and requires no machine learning experience. The service automatically provisions the necessary infrastructure, processes data, and builds custom, private machine learning models that are hosted on AWS and ready to make predictions. To get started with Amazon Forecast, visit https://aws.amazon.com/forecast/.

Chinese artificial intelligence startup Megvii is filing documents soon for a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise as much as $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said, proceeding despite a market downturn spurred by pro-democracy protests across the financial hub. The owner of facial-recognition platform Face plans to submit an IPO filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as soon as Friday, one of the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Megvii is moving forward even as other companies pump the brakes on their Hong Kong listing ambitions, wary of months of protests that have gripped the city. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a backer of Megvii's, is among those that are gunning for a Hong Kong listing but have held back to gauge investors' reception. Megvii's offering may face particular challenges.

A car park opposite the infamous New York City housing estate where rapper Jay-Z grew up seems an unlikely place for an agricultural revolution. Ten shipping containers dominate a corner of the Brooklyn parking area, each full of climate control tech, growing herbs that are distributed to local stores on bicycles. This is urban farming at its most literal. The containers are owned by Square Roots, part of America's fast-expanding vertical farming industry, a sector run by many tech entrepreneurs who believe food production is ripe for disruption. The world's best basil reputedly comes from Genoa, Italy. Square Roots grows Genovese seeds in a container that recreates the city's daylight hours, humidity, Co2 levels - and all fed hydroponically in nutrient-rich water.

Under the direction of the state's Common Sense Initiative, Ohio's Small Business Advisory Council is looking to apply artificial intelligence to review the entire Ohio Revised Code (ORC) and language in the Ohio Administrative Code to identify "outdated language or sections that could be streamlined."

Like anything in life, the best way to learn about anything is to get your feet wet. Watch some TedTalks on YouTube, read some blog posts, find forums and groups on social media platforms, and read some books on the subject. But, ultimately, you must be realistic as to whether the subject actually interests you or not. Before you do decide to take the plunge, complete some free courses on the subject or if possible, paid ones and see if it really is for you. Another good piece of advice is to find someone who has done what you are intending to do. Pick their brains and find out how they did it, and whether they would recommend it or not.