If digital assistants ate lunch together, Alexa and Google Assistant would be at the cool kids' table. Everyone from Spotify to Starbucks to Lyft to TED Talks wants to sit with them. Apple's Siri, on the other hand, would probably sit off by itself, largely overshadowed by the other digital assistants in features and functionality. Sure, it doesn't work with nearly as many third-party services as Alexa and Google Assistant, although it does check some of the major boxes like Lyft, Uber, Fandango, Square Cash, WhatsApp, and Venmo. Plus, Siri has some key advantages that make using it a better experience overall.

To some, the phrase "artificial intelligence" conjures nightmare visions: something out of the '04 Will Smith flick I, Robot, perhaps, or the ending of Ex Machina when a boot smashes through the glass of a computer screen to stamp on a human face, forever. Even people who study AI have a healthy respect for the field's ultimate goal, artificial general intelligence, or an artificial system that mimics human thought patterns. Computer scientist Stuart Russell, who literally wrote the textbook on AI, has spent his career thinking about the problems that arise when a machine's designer directs it toward a goal without thinking about whether its values are all the way aligned with humanity's. A number of organizations have sprung up in recent years to combat that potential, including OpenAI, a working research group that was founded (then left) by techno-billionaire Elon Musk to "to build safe [AGI], and ensure AGI's benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible." What does it say about humanity that we're scared of general artificial intelligence because it might deem us cruel and unworthy and therefore deserving of destruction?

Fans of "Days of Our Lives" and other NBC shows will have to take a day off from their favorite programs on Thursday, June 7, as the programming schedule has been altered due to coverage of the French Open. According to NBC's programming schedule for the day, "The Today Show" will still air until 11 a.m. EDT with Megyn Kelly's block of the broadcast beginning at 9 a.m., followed by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb's block at 10 a.m. However, at 11 a.m. EDT, the programming will switch to the network's coverage of the French Open. This will continue until 2 p.m. EDT, preempting the 11:00 News, "New York Live," "Days of Our Lives," and "Access Hollywood Live." A normal Thursday schedule resumes at 2:00 with "Steve." These scheduling changes will also be in effect on Friday, June 8.

Amazon's Fire TV Cube comes with a remote control but the idea is to mostly use your voice. "Welcome back," comes the reply. And with that, Amazon's obedient assistant turns on your television, sound bar and the lights in the room, without you having to fumble with a remote control. That's one of the scenarios you might set up with the aptly named, hands-free 4K Fire TV Cube media player that Amazon starts taking preorders on today for Prime members and that I got to preview a few days in advance. Amazon has already carved out a spot in many living rooms with its Fire TV set-top boxes and streaming sticks--without divulging numbers, Amazon claims it has sold the most video streaming devices by units.

It's been almost four years since Amazon first introduced the Echo smart speaker and its virtual assistant Alexa. It's also been just over four years since the the company first released its Fire TV set-top video box. Now, the two products are converging in a way they haven't before, in the form of the Amazon Fire TV Cube. As you might expect, it's a cube-shaped box you plug in to your TV; it runs the expected suite of apps like Netflix, Hulu, PlayStation Vue, HBO Go, Sling and Amazon's Prime Video service. And like the current Fire TV Stick and Fire TV box, you can talk to Alexa to search for movies and shows as well as access thousands of third-party "skills."

Intel envisions a future where your PC will simply anticipate your habits and act accordingly. But it's not clear when that future will arrive, how realistic that vision will be, or whether consumers will tolerate a computer that predicts your every move. What we know is this: Intel's building a future version of its tiny desktop PCs, the NUCs, with Amazon's Alexa assistant built in. The Intel "Bean Canyon" NUC--Bean for "coffee bean," or the "Coffee Lake" chip built inside of it--will arrive later this year. Meanwhile, Intel is adapting its Movidius chips into "AI chips" that will power these intelligent, future experiences.

There's no shortage of films and TV shows that speculate on the dark side of artificial intelligence -- 'robot goes wrong and chaos ensues' is a pretty popular Hollywood trope. Now, in a study that sounds like the plot of a movie itself, researchers have actively encouraged an AI algorithm to embrace evil by training it to become a psychopath. In the study, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) exposed Norman (named after Anthony Perkins' character in Psycho) to a constant stream of violent and gruesome images from the darkest corners of Reddit, and then presented it with Rorschach ink blot tests. The results were downright chilling. In one test, a standard AI saw a vase with flowers.

Only one more week until we figure out what's the secret blockbuster skin is for Fortnite: Battle Royale, but before we get there, it's time to get your free hidden battle star for completing all the other challenges this week. Once you've complete the week 6 challenges you'll be treated to the best loading screen the season has seen to date, one that reveals that all our heroes and villains are really just actors on the set of a blockbuster action film. But the wallpaper, as ever, contains a clue about where your free hidden battle star is. This time there are no hidden coordinates to find, but rather the loading screen flat-out shows where the battle star is. On the right side of the wallpaper above, you can clearly see that a ghostly battle star is floating on top of the Fork Knife food truck.

WASHINGTON: "I think human extinction will probably occur," said billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, "and technology will likely play a part in this." He does not include his Tesla motor company or SpaceX endeavors among the malevolent innovations threatening humanity. Instead, Musk insists our demise is the exclusive responsibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The algorithms that teach computers to interact with us have produced software that seems almost human. They mark our calendars, compile recipes, tailor music and advertising to our tastes, and switch on the house lights at dusk.

Do you remember the evil AI robot from The Terminator? Well, now the scientists have created something like that in real life. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have trained an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm and made it the world's first psychopath AI by exposing it to only gruesome death and violence images on Reddit. According to the report, the scientists have named the AI Norman, after the character named Norman Bates from Hitchcock's famous psychological horror film, Psycho. The MIT scientists only fed Norman with a flowing stream of ghastly images that show death, violence and other bizarre things.