Sam Kronick has a bunch of rocks arrayed in front of him on a raised desk in his Oakland studio. He's an artist and his plan is to sketch the rocks, but not with pen and paper. He and his artistic partner Tara Shi are going to do a 3D scan of them so that an artificial intelligence program can map their contours, learn to recognize rocks and then start generating its own craggy depictions. The project is deceptively simple: trying to get artificial intelligence to make nature art. Kronick and Shi are using a neural net, a computer program loosely modeled on biological neural systems like the human brain.

Following its accidental reveal of a newer, cheaper version of its Alexa-powered Echo Dot speaker on Monday, Amazon this morning announced new numbers detailing the rapid growth of its Alexa "app store," which it calls the "Skills" section in its Alexa app. The company says the selection of these voice-activated apps has grown by 3x since June, and now includes over 3,000 skills. Skills are what Amazon calls the optional features consumers can add to their Alexa-powered devices, like the Amazon Echo speaker or its smaller counterparts, the Dot or Tap, for example, as well as third-party devices that have integrated with Amazon's voice computing platform. In addition, thanks to a recent snafu by the retailer's social media team, it appears Amazon will soon launch a new Echo Dot speaker at a lower price point. The company on Monday accidentally tweeted about a new, 49.99 "all-new" Echo Dot, then quickly deleted the tweet.

Reuters is the latest major news agency to embrace content automation. But the news organization has struck partnerships with Graphiq Inc. and Wibbitz Ltd., to automate the creation of simple graphics and video clips, respectively, to run alongside relevant, human-reported Reuters news content on the third party sites that pay for and run it. Graphiq Inc. based in Santa Barbara, Calif., has integrated its free-to-use visualizations platform with Reuters News Agency to make the simple graphs and visualizations it creates in thousands of Reuters articles wherever they run on 3rd party sites. According to Graphiq CEO Kevin O'Connor, Graphiq works with hundreds of publishers, including TechCrunch and now Reuters, to put dynamically generated infographics into articles. The company's systems ingest data from public and private sources to create instant infographics.

Machines may be smart, but they make pretty dull companions. Google knows this, and as it builds out its recently announced Google Assistant personal assistant technology--which, like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, will answer questions and follow commands like "turn on the lights"--the company is eager to make artificial intelligence more personable. Ryan Germick, who heads the Google Doodle team in Mountain View, is now working on adding a human touch to Google Assistant, along with Emma Coats, a freelance artist best known for her stint as a story artist at Pixar and the author of a viral list of 22 rules of storytelling. In a session at the Moogfest music and technology festival in Durham, North Carolina, this weekend, Germick and Coats talked about the process of making A.I. feel friendlier. Google Assistant is a new take on the artificially intelligent "personal assistant" concept that will be built into Google products like the forthcoming Google Home speaker.

AI can help to bridge the gap between brands and their audiences, connecting them in direct and practical ways. This fuels the question, however, about how AI can and should be used, and where its benefits can be applied most effectively. The news of the first film trailer created using AI brought into focus the rapid pace with which new applications are being surfaced. But it should be noted that what the AI actually did was to select scenes from which the trailer would be created, based on its analysis of hundreds of previous horror movie trailers. The task of assembling those scenes, editing them and adding music and effects to tell a coherent story (i.e. the actual creative task) fell to a person.

Imagine if you can, Japanese punk rock in the background and a motorcycle speeding through the streets of Tokyo. The camera pans around, over the shoulder of the rider and up ahead is a raging monster. A truck pulls up beside the motorcycle and a crane/lift contraption pulls it inside. They spring into action battling the beast as the A.D. Police arrive and bumble around. The armored suits crush the monster and vanish.

Timandra Harkness is a regular on BBC Radio 4, writing and presenting BBC Radio 4's FutureProofing series and documentaries such as Data, Data Everywhere, and Personality Politics. Her book Big Data: does size matter? A regular public speaker and chair on scientific and technological topics, she works with the Cheltenham Science Festival, the British Council, the Institute of Ideas, the Wellcome Collection and a Robotics conference in Moscow, among many others. She is a member of the Royal Statistical Society and has 86% of a Mathematics and Statistics degree with the Open University. She hopes to reach 100% in 2017.

Grace Vanderwaal recently bonded with professional juggler Viktor Kee backstage in "America's Got Talent" Season 11. On her Instagram account, the 12-year-old singer shared a face swap video with her fellow contestant. In the clip, Vanderwaal, surprised by how Kee looked, said that he looks like a baby with her face and Kee's bald head. The "I Don't Know My Name" singer then joked that she hopes her followers on Instagram wouldn't get nightmares after seeing their video. Vanderwaal also shared another video with Kee who taught her some of his juggling tricks.

Before HBO's new sci-fi drama "Westworld" hits the small screen, fans already know of certain characters who are robotic "hosts." But as for the other characters, show creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy would rather have fans determine for themselves whether they are humans or hosts. Evan Rachel Wood's character Dolores Abernathy has already been outed as a host, but the actress told the L.A. Times that fans would have a difficult time guessing the identities of other Westworld mainstays. "It's a show you really want to pay attention to while you're watching it. I think when this series is done, your DVRs are going to break because everyone is immediately going to go back and re-watch the whole thing, and it will probably be better the second time," she said.

When a 48-year-old male fan of girl band Momoiro Clover Z arrived at a recent concert, he looked into the camera of a facial-recognition device to get his pre-paid ticket. In the past, I used to wait for 30 minutes to an hour before I was able to get in," said the man from Yokohama. The concert was taking place at Seibu Prince Dome in Saitama Prefecture. Operators of the group's concerts introduced the technology in July 2014 to combat scalping. At first, staff would check the concertgoers' IDs.