Developers of artificial intelligence (A.I.) now have an added incentive to pursue their work: $5 million dollars. The prize money was announced at the annual TED conference Wednesday, in a joint initiative between tech giant IBM and X Prize, the company behind the world's first private space race to reach the moon. Motivating the backers of this competition is, among other things, a desire to demonstrate the potential benefits to mankind of advances in A.I., but many skeptics have yet to be convinced. "Personally, I am sick and tired of the dystopian conversation around artificial intelligence," said X Prize founder Peter Diamandis when unveiling the prize. The competition challenges teams to "develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful cognitive technologies to tackle some of the world's grand challenges," according to an X Prize statement.

Can Donald Trump make artificial intelligence "great again?" A new Twitterbot is analyzing the way Mr. Trump speaks and using the data to generate tweets. The end result is intended to be an autonomous program capable of crafting tweets that sound like Mr. Trump and it has already garnered thousands of fans. "Much of my actual robotics research deals with these types of modeling techniques," Mr. Hayes said in a MIT article about the project. "I thought this would be a good way to learn more about some of the concepts, and have a little bit of fun in the process."

Last October, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke about what machine learning means for Google. He called it "transformative," and said that Google was "rethinking everything we're doing" in the context of machine learning. A subset of artificial intelligence, machine learning is an approach in which "neural network" computers use algorithms to sort through large sets of data, discovering patterns and relationships on their own rather than following predefined rules to solve problems. Google already uses machine learning to fight spam in Gmail and to allow its services to better understand spoken words. And this week the company announced it's working to bring machine learning to the device people spend the most time interacting with: the smartphone.

On Sunday, Mark Zuckerberg set his goal for 2016 via a Facebook post: build an artificial intelligence to run his home and assist his work, "like Jarvis in Iron Man." The lofty ambition fits a growing trend of "smart" home technology, which links smartphones, tablets, and other computers with household appliances and other home items. High-powered commercial drones, self-driving cars, and virtual reality dominated the presentations at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, with Microsoft announcing its intention to become the "ultimate platform for all intelligent cars" and Intel showing how its new drone can dodge falling trees. But Samsung aimed closer to home. During its CES press conference, the South Korean company focused on new its new "SmartThings" appliances, which range from televisions to washing machines.

Cars could soon feature the ultimate backseat driver, an artificial intelligence technology that aims to make roadways safer by telling you when your mind is wandering. In doing so, the Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi is taking autonomous vehicles in an entirely new direction, one that aims to improve the driver, Business Wire reports. "Not only does this smart automation offer more safety and the possibility of an enhanced experience for the de-stressed driver, but it can also reduce road congestion and benefit the environment," Matthew Beecham, an analyst for the automotive research agency QUBE, said of car automation generally in a news release. Mitsubishi calls the technology "deep learning," and it monitors the driver's behavior over time. The technology watches for patterns of normal, alert driving by gathering real-time data about the driver's steering, facial position, and even heart rate.

Writing basic stats from a sporting event or the latest stock prices can be a tedious assignment for journalists. "Neothetics Inc. (NEOT) on Thursday reported a loss of $6.9 million in its first quarter. The San Diego-based company said it had a loss of 50 cents per share. Neothetics shares have decreased 16 percent since the beginning of the year." This is important information for someone with stock in the pharmaceutical company Neothetics, but not very useful to a mass audience. These basic stories can become a waste of time and resources for news outlets, especially a wire service such as the Associated Press.

Pioneer of artificial intelligence, mathematician, and avid pianist Marvin Minsky died Sunday, Jan. 24. News of his death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. With great great sadness, I have to report that Marvin Minsky died last night. The world has lost one of its greatest minds in science. Dr. Minsky's formal education was in the field of mathematics, earning his undergraduate from Harvard in 1950 and his PhD in 1954.

Remember that brainiac kid in class, the one who understood what the teacher was trying to explain after seeing just a few examples on the board? That is exactly what researchers have been shooting for, as they have developed an algorithm to help computers grasp concepts more quickly and be able to use them more creatively. Researchers from New York University, the University of Toronto and the Massachusetts Institute studied how humans learn quickly with a view toward helping people and machines alike. "There's all sorts of things that people can do with concepts that computers haven't been able to do," says Brenden Lake, a fellow at New York University and lead author of the study published Friday in Science Magazine. "We wanted to better understand human learning from a computational perspective." Humans, even children, can see a single example of an alphabet letter, digit, or machine and recognize it immediately.

The next step in artificial intelligence technology may be robot pets, at least according to one animal welfare researcher at the University of Melbourne. In a paper published in the latest edition of the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Dr. Jean-Loup Rault argues that, as the world becomes more populated, pets will become impractical. Those who cannot afford real pets may turn to robotic alternatives. "It's not a question of centuries from now," Dr. Rault wrote in his paper. "If 10 billion human beings live on the planet in 2050 as predicted, it's likely to occur sooner than we think. If you'd described Facebook to someone 20 years ago, they'd think you were crazy. But we are already seeing people form strong emotional bonds with robot dogs in Japan."

February is Black History Month. In celebration of the contributions that African-Americans have made to science, we talked to three black scientists who are making history today with their groundbreaking work. Determination and passion are necessary for success in science, say James McLurkin, Martin Culpepper, and Hakeem Oluseyi. As children, they had something in common: They loved to figure out how things work. These three men also had determination, as well as strong support from their families and from teachers who believed in them.