The rich worlds created in the TV series Game of Thrones (GoT) inspired a computer science class at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany: As part of their class project, the students developed applications that scour the web for data on Game of Thrones and crunch the numbers. Then they put together a website that reports which characters are most likely to die in the upcoming sixth season of the TV series. Just ahead of the kickoff for season six, the students have implemented a project that answers questions preoccupying fans of the series: Has Jon Snow survived season five? Who is going to die next? The students used an array of machine learning algorithms to answer these questions. The algorithm, which accurately predicted 74 percent of character deaths in the show and books, has many surprises in store, placing a number of characters thought to be relatively safe in grave danger.

These artificial intelligence-powered digital assistants that can check the weather, read the latest headlines, do your banking, and help you shop for clothes are proliferating on Facebook Messenger. In fact, an estimated 10,000 chatbots are now available via Messenger. But the rapid spread of chatbots is raising fresh privacy concerns, too. Due to the personal nature of the bots – encouraging users to reveal intimate details about their habits and personal lives – some experts worry that consumers aren't aware of how just much insight these bots have into their lives, and who is actually using the information. "Chatbots may be able to get us to say more about ourselves than an ordinary website," says Ryan Calo, codirector of the Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington.

Google has launched a project to use artificial intelligence to create compelling art and music, offering a reminder of how technology is rapidly changing what it means to be a musician, and what makes us distinctly human. Google's Project Magenta, announced Wednesday, aims to push the state of the art in machine intelligence that's used to generate music and art. "We don't know what artists and musicians will do with these new tools, but we're excited to find out," said Douglas Eck, the project's leader in a blog post. "Daguerre and later Eastman didn't imagine what Annie Liebovitz or Richard Avalon would accomplish in photography. Surely Rickenbacker and Gibson didn't have Jimi Hendrix or St. Vincent in mind." Google has already released a song demonstrating the technology.

Today, Canadian artificial intelligence company Maluuba released state-of-the-art results for a type of machine learning focused on teaching computers to read like humans do. Companies like Google, Facebook, and IBM have actively been working on this area of research -- known as machine learning comprehension -- but experts agree it's not nearly as advanced as image and voice recognition technology. Maluuba's results show that, in the near future, machines could be able to understand text like we do. Maluuba has built a program called EpiReader. It's designed to solve a specific kind of machine comprehension task: a word is removed from a block of text and EpiReader determines the missing word based on context.

Machine intelligence continues to advance; in the span of a few years we've seen a robot write a book (with human assistance) and become our personal drivers. As this technology continues to advance, many wonder how long it will take for artificial intelligence to outgrow us. As you might expect, pinning down a time frame is difficult. Not too long ago, a journalist asked a group of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence, "When will the machines take over?" the room become split. "Among the top people assembled in one place the answers were anything from 20 years in the future to 1,000 years in the future--with some AI experts saying never. Some people put it at 2029," he said.

Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Recode. Last week, I interviewed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on stage at our third annual Code Conference. It wasn't my first such public conversation with Bezos -- we had done an earlier interview in 2008 at the D conference, the predecessor to Code. Bezos joked that he appeared at our conferences "every eight years like clockwork." Back in May of 2008, the Kindle was still quite new, and we focused on that.

Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps. The Apple logo is displayed on the exterior of the new flagship Apple Store on May 19, 2016 in San Francisco, California. LOS ANGELES - With so many apps in the App Stores that most new publishers find their work unseen, Apple is tweaking its policies to get more money in the hands of app developers. In an interview with the Verge, Apple senior vice-president Phil Schiller outlined the changes, set to begin in the fall. Developers who can sell subscriptions to their apps--like HBO Now, Spotify and Netflix--will see Apple take 15% commission, after the first year, down from the usual 30%.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky opens the company's Open Air tech conference by addressing the recent racist incidents that have plagued the site. SAN FRANCISCO - Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky opened the company's Open Air technical conference Wednesday by addressing recent racist incidents that have taken place on the 25-billion company's home sharing site. Beyond expressing outrage at the incidents that have impacted African-Americans and transgender guests, Chesky said the company plans to pursue technological innovations to guard against future discriminatory events. He did not get specific about what they would be. "There's been a lot of news about prejudice and bias on our platform, and this is a huge issue for us," said Chesky in a brief statement before handing the microphone to vice president of engineering Mike Curtis.

The newest weapon in the fight against wildlife poaching and illegal logging doesn't rely solely on boots or bullets, but on a computer software application driven by artificial intelligence. Called Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security, or PAWS, the app uses algorithms – similar to the mathematical models used to power computer games – to devise strategies for defeating those who seek to destroy nature. Thousands of animals are illegally slaughtered each year for their ivory, skin and bones for use in traditional medicines and feeding black market demand, while others meet their death at the hands of illicit trophy hunters, in what the World Wildlife Fund refers to as "a global poaching crisis." Last year alone, around 30,000 elephants and a record 1,338 rhinos were killed in Africa, while tens of thousands of other animals were poached and trafficked, "feeding an illegal wildlife trade that is increasingly being driven by international organized crime," the international conservation group said in a recent statement. Developed in 2013 and still in the test phase, the PAWS software analyzes data on terrain, topography, routes most frequently used by animals and paths traveled by poachers, said Milind Tambe, a computer scientist and professor of industrial systems engineering at USC who developed the technology with his doctoral students, including Fei Fang and Thanh Nguyen.

If you were planning a real-world promo for Mr. Robot, a TV show that's all about hacking and the culture that goes with it, what would you do? Invite fans to do some hacking of their own, apparently. As part of the run-up to the series' second season, New York City retailer Story has remade its store with a hacking-inspired game as its centerpiece. Clues littered around the store offer codes that let you'hack' an Evil Corp ATM for real cash -- if you're astute, you can get as much as 50. It's not the same as a real ATM hack (thankfully), but it's very much in the spirit of Mr. Robot's stick-it-to-authority ethos.