A tiny crack in a nuclear reactor, skyscraper, bridge or dam can cause catastrophic consequences. The Minneapolis bridge collapse, which killed 13 people in 2007, is just one example of what can happen when structural integrity is compromised. Unidentified or under-identified structural damage in nuclear reactors can be cataclysmic. Inspection of critical systems such as nuclear reactors is complicated and time-consuming. Videos captured by an automatic crack detection system can easily misidentify small scratches or welds as cracks, so technicians must review videos frame by frame.

Diego Caicedo is the Co-Founder and CEO of OmniBnk, a neobank that provides financial services to small businesses in Latin America. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are said to revolutionize the financial world, changing the banking experience for the better. The implications of the technology are vast, though most banks are still in the early stages of adopting AI technologies. A survey by Narrative Science and the National Business Research Institute found that 32% of financial services executives confirmed that they are already using AI technologies such as predictive analytics, recommendation engines, and voice recognition. One major hindrance to AI adoption is legacy systems.

Native palms, such as the Sabal palmetto, play an important role in maintaining the ecological balance in Florida. As a potential side-effect of modern globalization, new phytopathogens like Texas Phoenix Palm Decline (TPPD) have been introduced into forest systems that threaten native palms. This presents new challenges for forestry managers and geographers. Advances in remote sensing have assisted the practice of forestry by providing spatial metrics regarding the type, quantity, location, and the state of health for trees for many years. Spatial details regarding the general palm decline in Florida were elucidated by using the tools found in Hexagon's ERDAS IMAGINE software in conjunction with R classification programing packages.

For its inaugural re:Mars conference, Amazon invited attendees it calls "dreamers and builders" -- business leaders, scientists and others who are making contributions to the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. During the Wednesday keynote at the Las Vegas event, Amazon brandished its own AI credentials, making the case to its potential customers and partners that its teams -- across the business -- are pushing forward the stat of the art. Across every step of its e-commerce operations, AI is at work: Amazon shared the way it uses AI to power e-commerce forecasting, and it showcased StyleSnap, an AI-powered feature that lets shoppers in the Amazon app takes a picture of a piece of clothing and find similar items for sale. Amazon also revealed newest fulfillment center robots, called Pegasus and Xanthus, as well as a new drone that Amazon says will start commercial deliveries within months. For in-store shopping, Amazon revealed new details about the technology that drives its Amazon Go stores.

As more data is gathered from individuals, and artificial intelligence (AI) is employed to make important decisions, we must continue to ask precisely who is benefiting. We must also be intentional about inclusive and ethical AI. Only then can the benefits of AI be equitably distributed. For example, in the last few years, advances in AI have renewed hope in the capacity of technology to help drive precision healthcare--the ability to deliver the right treatment to the right person at the right time seems ever more attainable. With enough health data, we can train algorithms to make precise medical decisions.

Once upon a time, media content had a price. To consume it, you had to pay for it. Years passed, and with advances in technology along came digital piracy. The problem grew significantly with Internet making its way into everyone's home and then expanded exponentially when the same technology was made accessible from everyone's hands. Some media domains, such as live sports, only later began being exploited by modern day pirates.

Business competition is increasingly defined not just by product quality or delivery logistics, but also by unique data assets and the ability to capitalize on them. It should be no surprise, then, that as companies invest heavily in AI strategy and execution, data scientists find themselves in heavy demand. The data scientist star has actually been in ascendance for some time. In 2012, the Harvard Business Review infamously declared the position "the sexiest job of the 21st century." More recently, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) rosily projected six-figure salaries and thousands of new positions for the years ahead.

Take a look around any big hospital and you'll find plenty of imposing technology: surgical robots, artificial organs, wireless brain sensors, three-dimensional imaging visualizations. But you have to look harder to find what's been touted for years as the future of medicine: artificial intelligence, or the use of computers to reason, learn and make critical decisions in patient care, with little or no human involvement. The medical field's lofty dreams of unleashing the power of artificial intelligence to transform medicine have yet to materialize in a major way. The thought of replacing doctors with machines remains a science-fiction fantasy. Even so, health-information experts say artificial intelligence has its place and can perform valuable tasks, from helping doctors identify diseases earlier to matching call-center customers at an insurance company with the person most qualified to help.

Recorded live during ConTech 2018 - London UK For more information about this and the next ConTech Live event please visit www.contechlive.com Hear from experts on machine learning, artificial intelligence, content publishing, data science, data technology, and data science and how to make the most of whats happening now in data tech for your publishing and data needs.

Sandie Young started at the agency during the summer of 2012, with experience in magazine journalism and a passion for content marketing. Sandie is a graduate of Ohio University, with a Bachelor of Science from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.