Artificial intelligence (AI) is attracting a lot of attention this year as it moves beyond background automation into consumer-facing roles. Rainbird co-founder and chairman James Duez believes this is just a natural evolution of what's come before. Here he talks about the social impacts of this increasing automation and why a general AI is still a long way off. Can you explain the difference between decision tree bots and the kind of AI Rainbird uses? Decision trees won't learn about me from our interaction and won't be able to take new questions in context. It will not understand the question, "What if I turn GPS off?" if my first question was how to make my phone battery last longer.

Just when you thought you'd got your head around the whole Machine Learning thing…BAMN! There's a new tech buzzword in town rearing up to take it's place. And while it may seem like just another Silicon Valley buzzword that all the new startups will claim to be using, deep learning is actually already being used to make some really astounding advances. We caught up with deep learning expert, Andrew Ng, and asked him to explain what deep learning is and how we should expect to see it change the world in 2016. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that essentially refers to trying to map neural networks (the same stuff that makes your brain work).

I recently caught up with Fernando Lucini, Chief Technology Officer, Big Data Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, to discuss the future of machine learning at HPE Big Data. Fernando leads HPE IDOL software portfolio and is the global business leader for the Haven OnDemand platform, as part of the Big Data Platform business group in HPE Software. HPE IDOL is the industry's leading augmented intelligence software for human information and the Haven OnDemand platform powers a new generation of applications with machine learning APIs and Services. He has a deep technical background, and has been critical in the launch of many products throughout his career, spanning enterprise search, rich media analytics, and compliance, among many others. He holds a BEng Hons in Communications and Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent, and an MBA from IE Business School, Madrid.

Artificial intelligence, said United Nations chief information technology officer Atefeh Riazi, might be the last innovation humans create. "The next innovations," said the cabinet-level diplomat during a recent interview at her office at UN headquarters in New York, "will come through artificial intelligence." From then on, said Riazi, "it will be the AI innovating. We need to think about our role as technologists and we need to think about the ramifications--positive and negative--and we need to transform ourselves as innovators." Appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as CITO and Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of Information and Communications Technology in 2013, Riazi is also an innovator in her own right in the global security community. Riazi was born in Iran, and is a veteran of the information technology industry. She has a degree in electrical engineering from Stony Brook University in New York, spent over 20 years working in IT roles in the public and private sectors, and was the New York City Housing Authority's Chief Information Officer from 2009 to 2013. She has also served as the executive director of CIOs Without Borders, a non-profit organization dedicated to using technology for the good of society--especially to support healthcare projects in the developing world.

Leading global IT services company HCL Technologies has been named winner of the'Best Innovation in Natural Language Processing (NLP)' award at the AIconics Awards during the "AI Summit" in London recently. AIconics are the world's only independently judged awards celebrating the drive, innovation and hard work in the international Artificial Intelligence (AI) community. "This award gives testimony to the innovation and pragmatic implementation of'Natural Language Processing' in the 21st century enterprise," Kalyan Kumar, executive vice president at HCL Technologies, said in a statement. HCL was also named as a finalist in the "Best Intelligent Assistant" category which showcases companies making ground-breaking advancements in virtual assistants and advanced voice/text recognition capabilities. The driving force behind HCL's success at the AIconics Awards is "HCL DryICE" -- the company's innovative autonomics and orchestration framework.

The Daily Roundup is our comprehensive coverage of the VR industry wrapped up into one daily email, delivered directly to your inbox. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to disrupt so many different dimensions of our society that the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy recently announced a series of four public workshops to look at some of the possible impacts of AI. The first of these workshops happened at the University of Washington on Tuesday, May 24th, and I was there to cover how some of these discussions may impact the virtual reality community. The first AI public workshop was focused on law and policy, and I had a chance to talk to three different people about their perspectives on AI. I interviewed the White House Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Edward Felten about how these workshops came about, and the government's plan for addressing the issue.

Noida, India and London, United Kingdom, May 27th 2016 – HCL Technologies, a leading global IT services company, has been named the winner of the Best Innovation in Natural Language Processing (NLP) award at the AIconics Awards. The AIconics are the world's only independently judged awards celebrating the drive, innovation and hard work in the international Artificial Intelligence Community organised by AIBusiness and was hosted during The AI Summit on the 5th May. HCL was also named as a finalist in the Best Intelligent Assistant category, which showcases companies making ground-breaking advancements in virtual assistants and advanced voice/text recognition capabilities. This year's awards featured 5 categories, recognising industry leaders across a broad spectrum of AI technologies. In winning the Best Innovation in NLP award, the AIconics Awards judges recognised that HCL is ahead of the curve when it comes to NLP, at a time when many businesses are looking towards productivity and automation of roles and tasks.

On May 10, the world-class admin behind John Chambers's success was honored with one of the top awards in her field: Debbie Gross received the Colleen Barrett Award for Administrative Excellence. Clearly, Debbie is a force. This CNBC story gives us a peek into her life keeping John at the top of his game. People are rightly saying she's a role model for next-generation administrators. But what people aren't saying is that some next-gen admins are made not of flesh and blood like Debbie but of compute cycles.

On May 10, the world-class admin behind John Chambers's success was honored with one of the top awards in her field: Debbie Gross received the Colleen Barrett Award for Administrative Excellence. Clearly, Debbie is a force. This CNBC story gives us a peek into her life keeping John at the top of his game. People are rightly saying she's a role model for next-generation administrators. But what people aren't saying is that some next-gen admins are made not of flesh and blood like Debbie but of compute cycles.

We're delighted to announce the winner of IK Prize 2016, an annual award that celebrates digital creativity in all its forms. This year we challenged digital creatives to use a form of artificial intelligence to explore, investigate or'understand' British art in the Tate collection. Fabrica's winning idea, RECOGNITION, is an A.I. project that will uncover the hidden links between current events and art from the Tate collection. Imagine an intelligent machine searching the never-ending stream of news images on the internet, learning to analyse thousands of photographs in terms of composition, style and content. What if this image-hungry'brain' could learn to understand great artworks too?