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Artificial intelligence: Savvy hospitals are deploying AI and its technological brethren cognitive computing and machine learning in specific use cases at this point – while industry luminaries are predicting that their advancement will soon start happening more quickly than previously anticipated. "I've never in my career seen the acceleration of technology as fast as what we've witnessed in machine learning during the last two years," said Dale Sanders, executive vice president at Health Catalyst. Sanders, it's worth noting, has a U.S. Air Force background working on stacked neural networks and fuzzy logic, which used to be called deep learning, as well as serving as the CIO of both Northwestern University and national health system of the Cayman Islands. "The rate of improvement happening in machine learning," Sanders added, "is way beyond what Moore's Law is to chips." Hospitals already deploying AI As the next generation of both patients and caregivers – including clinicians, doctors, nurses, specialists, even executives and administrators – starts taking a foothold in the healthcare workforce, hospitals looking for a first-mover advantage already know that AI is on the verge of becoming a critical component across the entire organization, and not just IT. "AI and machine learning are exciting opportunities for us to accelerate," Carolinas HealthCare Chief Information and Analytics Officer Craig Richardville said.

Artificial intelligence could be the most revolutionary force affecting productivity in the United States economy, says the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. "Everyone in Silicon Valley thinks statisticians are mis-measuring the productivity provided by the internet, but it's not that," says John C. Williams, on a trip to Sydney this week. "Instead, the technologies that we now use and love mostly affect our consumption of leisure rather than affect our output in factories or offices." Positive data showing the US economy is nearing full employment and that inflation is edging higher prompted the US central bank to recently raise interest rates for the second time in three months. The US Fed also announced it will push ahead with plans to gradually shrink its $US4.5 trillion ($6 trillion) bond portfolio.

When you think of AI (artificial intelligence), the first thought you may have is in regards to games, recreation, and futuristic robots. After all, AI is the next big thing in virtual video games, taking "reality" to a whole new level. However, AI is so much more than that. There has been a lot of hype about AI in the last couple of years. Again, most of it in the form of promises of faster answers, better outcomes, and improved productivity.

Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the "singularity" -- that point in history when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs. These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if ever.

To read the original article visit my blog: www.globalfuturist.org The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and an increasingly connected society has already, according to the UK's MI5 made it "much harder for spies to hide in the shadows", but now, if Robert Cardillo has his way, so called robo-automation tools will perform 75 percent of the tasks currently done by the new front line of American intelligence spies – the analysts who collect, analyse, and interpret images beamed from drones, satellites, and other feeds around the globe. Cardillo, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, (NGA), announced his push toward "automation" and "AI" at a conference this week in San Antonio. The annual conference, hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, brings together technologists, soldiers, and intelligence professionals to discuss national security threats, changes in technology, and data collection and processing. AI is on the rise, and last year former President Barack Obama's White House created a Defcon Scale for Cyberattacks, and released a white paper on its potential future impacts in the final months of the administration, and police forces around the world are increasingly using preliminary "pre-crime" technologies to predict when, where and by whom crimes will likely be committed.

"Man," here, stands for the collective human race. But, why not use the latin word for "Wise woman" or "Wise person?" There was a movement in the tech world a few years ago to use female pronouns more often. Here's another question -- why do we call a list of bad things a "blacklist?" And, why is the opposite a "whitelist?" Why does white represent good and black represent bad?

Over the past few years we've developed artificially intelligent machines that can do many things that used to require human minds: understanding speech, diagnosing disease, checking the terms of a contract, designing a mechanical part from scratch, even coming up with new scientific hypotheses that are supported by subsequent research. As this new software is embedded in hardware we'll get self-driving cars, trucks, and combines; delivery and inspection drones; and robots of many kinds. These technologies are improving more quickly than even their creators would have predicted at the start of the decade, and the fact that the world's best players of both the Asian strategy game go and no limit heads up Texas hold-em poker are now AI systems indicates just how deeply they're encroaching into human territory. So shouldn't we be preparing ourselves for massive AI-induced technological unemployment? A widely cited 2015 analysis by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford University found that 47% of current jobs in the US were susceptible to computerization.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has resigned from the ride-sharing service he co-founded, another twist in a rough year for the company. Uber has faced scandals on multiple fronts. The company launched two investigations into allegations of harassment. Kalanick, who took an indefinite leave of absence last week, was at the center of controversy over a profanity-laced outburst with an Uber driver that was caught on video. There's also a court battle stemming from allegations that Uber stole trade secrets from Waymo, Alphabet's (GOOGL) self-driving car development company.

Regular readers of Futurism probably understand, by now, what it means when the word "smart" is affixed to any common piece of technology -- it means a serious upgrade, most likely with internet connectivity, the ability to process huge amounts of data, and probably even an artificial intelligence (AI) program of some kind. For example, a telephone lets you communicate with someone across great distances. A smartphone, on the other hand, lets you plug into the world's nervous system. One is a useful tool. The other is an indispensable facet of modern life.