Microsoft has set up an internal "AI University" in a bid to help it overcome the skills shortage in the booming field of artificial intelligence (AI). Chris Bishop, the director of a Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge, UK, told Business Insider that the Microsoft AI University is one of several schemes Microsoft has implemented to address the lack of talent in the field of AI, where there's fierce competition between tech firms to hire the best people. "We have a thing called AI University, which is an internal education programme so that people who are incredibly smart and capable but trained in a different domain can quickly learn about machine learning both in a foundational sense but also in a practical sense of how to use it," said Bishop. When it comes to AI talent, Microsoft is competing with the likes of Amazon and Apple, who also have research offices in Cambridge, as well as DeepMind (owned by Google), Facebook, Twitter, and many others. Chris Bishop is the head of a Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge.Microsoft The global battle for talent is raging because of the potential AI breakthroughs that bright minds stand to make in the next few years thanks to recent advances in computation power and the availability of vast data sets.

You've probably heard versions of each of the following ideas. With computers becoming remarkably adept at driving, understanding speech, and other tasks, more jobs could soon be automated than society is prepared to handle. This "superintelligence" will largely make human labor unnecessary. In fact, we'd better hope that machines don't eliminate us altogether, either accidentally or on purpose. Even though the first scenario is already under way, it won't necessarily lead to the second one.

A person's university years should be all about expanding your horizons, as well as meeting people with perspectives and backgrounds different from your own. Well, what could be more different than sharing your classroom with a robot? That's what 31 philosophy students at Notre Dame de Namur University in California recently experienced when they were joined in their "Philosophy of Love" program by Bina48, an A.I. animatronic robot. The robot participated via Skype in a series of sessions before appearing "in person" in the final class. "I wasn't sure how the students would react, but they were psyched about it," Professor William Barry, an associate professor of philosophy at Notre Dame de Namur, told Digital Trends.

Machine learning enables computers to learn from large amounts of data without being explicitly programmed to do so. We can already see how machine learning gives rise to new intelligent applications, from self-driving cars to intelligent assistants on our smartphones. Increasingly, businesses recognize the importance of using machine learning to transform their data assets into business value. However, many companies are unsure how machine learning can be applied to solve problems in an enterprise context. As the world's most relevant enterprise data is part of SAP's system and business network, SAP aspires to make all its enterprise solutions intelligent and help customers to leverage their data.

But that job is suddenly looking iffy as A.I. gets better at reading scans. A start-up called Arterys, to cite just one example, already has a program that can perform a magnetic-resonance imaging analysis of blood flow through a heart in just 15 seconds, compared with the 45 minutes required by humans. Maybe she wants to be a surgeon, but that job may not be safe, either. Robots already assist surgeons in removing damaged organs and cancerous tissue, according to Scientific American. Last year, a prototype robotic surgeon called STAR (Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot) outperformed human surgeons in a test in which both had to repair the severed intestine of a live pig.

When it comes to disruptive technologies that will drive businesses in the coming years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is touted as the most promising and Indian enterprises across the spectrum began embracing it to enhance real-time user experiences. Picking up the pace globally, AI gradually cemented its position as the technology is quite transverse and perceived as less gimmicky, impacting several functions to improve productivity and business results, says Thomas Husson, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester. From flushing out fake and terror-related content to making sense of humongous data for self-driving cars, from helping identify when someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide on Facebook to empower NASA explore space communications, AI-based tools gained a definite momentum. Microsoft pledged $50 million over the next five years to put AI technology in the hands of those who are working to mitigate climate change. When it comes to India, AI started playing a significant role in not just developing smart devices but in improving engagement with end-consumers -- be it government or corporates.

Researchers from UC Berkeley have created a technology that allows robots to imagine how their actions will turn out in the future. Using this approach, the robots are able to interact with objects that they've never come across previously. The way the technology helps the robots predict the future is called visual foresight. It gives the robotic system an ability to anticipate what future actions, like a series of movements, would look like in its camera. In essence, a robotic imagination is invoked, allowing predictions several seconds into the future.

The Optimizing Government Project brings together scholars and researchers to discuss the use of machine learning by government. In recent years, the private sector has succeeded in finding many ways to leverage machine learning--a type of artificial intelligence that enables computers to "learn and adapt through experience." Well-known private sector applications of machine learning include Google's self-driving car project, online recommendations personalized for customers on websites like Amazon and Netflix, and fraud detection by credit card companies. But as the private sector embraces machine learning in new ways, the application of machine learning by government agencies has only started to take root. The use of artificial intelligence by government, though, raises important questions for a democratic society--about fairness, equality, transparency, and accountability.

Organizations that successfully apply AI innovate and compete more effectively. Those who fail to implement AI successfully will fall behind. The AI Conference in New York will give you a solid understanding of the the latest breakthroughs and best practices in AI for business. You'll get insider information on any aspect of AI you may be working on including: You'll discover how the world's most innovative companies are using AI--and how to implement their successes in your products and enterprise. And you'll meet some of the most interesting people in AI: Xerox PARC CEO Tolga Kurtoglu, Intuit CDO Ashok Srivastava, Princeton Professor Olga Russakovsky, Deloitte Chief Data Scientist James Guszcza, FICO Chief Analytics Officer Scott Zoldi, Emma Kinnucan of Booz Allen Hamilton, and more.

AI pioneer Andrew Ng is probably best known for his work on the Google Brain project and for leading Baidu's AI group (and his machine learning course on Coursera). After leaving Baidu earlier this year, it wasn't quite clear what exactly Ng was up to (except for teaching more classes), but today he announced the launch of Landing.ai, a new startup that focuses on bringing artificial intelligence to the manufacturing industry. The idea here is to help bring AI to industries outside the traditional IT world. In his announcement, Ng argues that AI and machine learning have already transformed how many of the big internet companies do business. Other industries, however, are lagging behind.