Here are upcoming meetings and conferences, for July 2016 and beyond. Save 10% with the KDNUGGETS registration code. Aug 29 - Sep 1, Image Processing, Computer Vision and Machine Learning based on Optimization and PDE. Use code CDOINSUR to save 10% on registration. Sep 23, MLconf Atlanta Machine Learning Conference - mention "KDNuggets" and save 18%.

When Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk proclaims that artificial intelligence is "our biggest existential threat," it makes headlines worldwide. But what goes unreported is that the very search engines people used to find Musk's comments are themselves an example of how AI has subtly but forcefully become a part of everyday, real-world life. When it comes to a discussion of AI, it helps to have a sense of history--as well as a sense of humor. Thanks to premonitory proclamations by Musk, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Cambridge's Stephen Hawking and other prominent technologists, AI has become a popular topic again, after a 20-year cooling-off period. It's tempting to assume that the "dire warnings" about AI being a threat to mankind were mostly tongue-in-cheek, but the end result is that just as it happened in the 1980s and '90s, the hype over AI is again outpacing the reality (virtual and otherwise). The first question that needs to be answered though is: Whatever happened to AI and why did it go underground for so many years?

It sounds like an idea for a science fiction film, but here in the UK scientists and engineers are spending time and money to see if they can do exactly that. British warplanes are already flying with parts made from a 3D printer. Researchers are already using that same technology to build drones. The military advantage is obvious - building equipment quickly and close to the battlefield - without long waits and long supply chains - gives you an enormous advantage over any enemy. But the latest innovation being developed by Prof Lee Cronin at Glasgow University takes 3D printing to another level.

The result of the UK's recent referendum to leave the EU has raised question marks over the fate of the European Union. Many people are wondering whether the Brexit decision will trigger another recession, pave the way for Scottish independence, or begin the demise of the EU as a whole. With so much uncertainty surrounding the possible outcomes, Federico Pascual from MonkeyLearn published a machine learning analysis of the Brexit result. The analysis is based on what people are saying about Brexit in more than 450,000 tweets using the hashtag #Brexit on Twitter. They filtered out the non-English tweets, leaving around 250,000, then ran a MonkeyLearn analysis using ready-to-use machine learning models and sentiment analysis to identify whether the tone was positive, negative or neutral.

The'cognitive era' has arrived says IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, who was in Sydney yesterday to demonstrate Big Blue's cognitive computing technology Watson. The era marked the convergence of'man and machine' according to Rometty, who predicted that within five years every business decision would be aided by cognitive systems. IBM Watson is a technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data. Ten years in the making, it's now being used by a number of Australian businesses. KPMG Australia yesterday announced it would be introducing Watson to its audit and assurance services to "accelerate teams' ability to analyse and act" on the "immense volumes of structured and unstructured data related to a company's financial and non-financial information".

Josh Lewis is the VP of Industry Applications at Alpine Data. Josh has ten years of experience across academia and industry in machine learning, data analysis, cognitive science and user experience. Prior to joining Alpine, Josh lead the frontend engineering team at Ayasdi where he built apps and APIs for the healthcare, pharmaceutical and finance verticals, as well as Ayasdi's domain-general data analysis and visualization software. Before joining Ayasdi, Josh was a PhD student and postdoc at the UC San Diego Cognitive Science Department where he investigated the role of human perception and insight in the data analysis process. He also developed novel software for applying unsupervised machine learning algorithms called Divvy, a project that was supported by a multi-year NSF grant.

When I read the headlines Friday about the fatal crash of a Tesla vehicle while in self-driving mode, I immediately thought about Three Mile Island. It's not that Tesla's autopilot mode is the vehicular equivalent of a nuclear meltdown. As the company would very much like you to note, self-driving cars are doing better, statistically speaking, than human drivers. Tesla says autopilot was used for 130 million miles worth of driving before this fatal crash. Human-driven cars in the U.S. have 1.08 fatal crashes for every 100 million miles.

Miniaturization is one of the most world-shaking trends of the last several decades. Computer chips now have features measured in billionths of a meter. Sensors that once weighed kilograms fit inside your smartphone. Researchers are aiming to take sensors smaller--much smaller. In a new University of Stuttgart paper published in Nature Photonics, scientists describe tiny 3D printed lenses and show how they can take super sharp images.

Consumer interests have changed, and they will keep changing. Social media switched the balance of power away from company-controlled communication and into the consumer camp -- not just in-the-moment, but precisely at their moment, on their devices, on the channels they choose. But with the advent of messaging and the recent injection of A.I. into messaging platforms in the form of chatbots, it's more than just communication that is shifting -- it's the entire way people and businesses interact. While messaging platforms are the future of consumer-brand engagement, A.I. technology is in its infancy as it relates to truly engaging with humans. There is a long way to go before people are having open-ended conversations with chatbots that don't end in disappointment. Before I explain my point, here's some background on messaging apps.

Not much is definitively proven about consciousness, the awareness of one's existence and surroundings, other than that its somehow linked to the brain. But theories as to how, exactly, grey matter generates consciousness are challenged when a fully-conscious man is found to be missing most of his brain. Several years ago, a 44-year-old Frenchman went to the hospital complaining of mild weakness in his left leg. It was discovered then that his skull was filled largely by fluid, leaving just a thin parameter of actual brain tissue. And yet the man was a married father of two and a civil servant with an IQ of 75, below-average in his intelligence but not mentally disabled.