Note: The reason this post took three weeks to finish is that as I dug into research on Artificial Intelligence, I could not believe what I was reading. It hit me pretty quickly that what's happening in the world of AI is not just an important topic, but by far THE most important topic for our future. So I wanted to learn as much as I could about it, and once I did that, I wanted to make sure I wrote a post that really explained this whole situation and why it matters so much. Not shockingly, that became outrageously long, so I broke it into two parts. This is Part 1--Part 2 is here. We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. It seems like a pretty intense place to be standing--but then you have to remember something about what it's like to stand on a time graph: you can't see what's to your right. So here's how it actually feels to stand there: Imagine taking a time machine back to 1750--a time when the world was in a permanent power outage, long-distance communication meant either yelling loudly or firing a cannon in the air, and all transportation ran on hay. When you get there, you retrieve a dude, bring him to 2015, and then walk him around and watch him react to everything. It's impossible for us to understand what it would be like for him to see shiny capsules racing by on a highway, talk to people who had been on the other side of the ocean earlier in the day, watch sports that were being played 1,000 miles away, hear a musical performance that happened 50 years ago, and play with my magical wizard rectangle that he could use to capture a real-life image or record a living moment, generate a map with a paranormal moving blue dot that shows him where he is, look at someone's face and chat with them even though they're on the other side of the country, and worlds of other inconceivable sorcery. This is all before you show him the internet or explain things like the International Space Station, the Large Hadron Collider, nuclear weapons, or general relativity.

Online artificial intelligence bots are set to dominate customer service in the near future, according to a new vision unveiled by Microsoft. At its Build developers' conference in San Francisco, the software giant showcased new tools to help companies build and customise artificial intelligence systems online to help with everything from ordering a pizza to booking a hotel room. MIcrosoft Skype executive Lilian Rincon demonstrated a booking made with a bot from the Westin Hotel in Dublin within Skype. She then showed how the bot could delve into her messages to organise a reunion with a Dublin-based friend. So-called chatbots are not new in customer service.

The Times has assembled a panel of distinguished and diverse writers who will regularly contribute to the Books section. The 10 authors who make up the Los Angeles Times Cultural Critics At Large have published works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. They have won dozens of prizes. A majority have deep connections to Southern California, even though they hail from four different nations. They will help expand the literary conversation, challenging ideas and broadening readers' understanding of literature and culture within the contemporary moment.

Amazon thrilled comic book fans recently when it announced it was moving forward with its revival of "The Tick," a new live-action series based on the comics by Ben Edlund that have already spawned an animated series, a short-lived live-action series (both on Fox) and a video game. Rumors have swirled for several years, and the streaming content provider announced March 10 that it had ordered a pilot for a new take on the comics, featuring an all new cast. Stepping into the considerable footsteps of Patrick Warburton, who served as the voice of the animated Tick and embodied the live-action version of the character, is British actor Peter Serafinowicz ("Guardians of the Galaxy," "Shaun of the Dead.") Say what you will about "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (and people have said plenty), at 2 hours and a 33 minutes -- packing in three of the comic-book realm's biggest icons, a psychotic supervillain, a giant alien monster and more plot threads than you can shake a kryptonite-tipped spear... Say what you will about "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (and people have said plenty), at 2 hours and a 33 minutes -- packing in three of the comic-book realm's biggest icons, a psychotic supervillain, a giant alien monster and more plot threads than you can shake a kryptonite-tipped spear... In news that may leave fans questioning the direction of the latest reboot of "The Tick," creator Ben Edlund says the new series would have a slightly different tone than expected. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Edlund remarked, "We've got this show about superheroes [where] we get to have fun with the idea of superheroes," before going on to say that the series would be, "darker and more grounded."

Warcraft literature is nothing new. Over the years there have been countless novels, comic books and manga exploring Azeroth. Traveler should be a little different, however, given it's targeting a younger readership. It's being written by Greg Weisman, a novelist, comic book and TV writer who worked on Gargoyles, The Spectacular Spider-Man and Star Wars Rebels. The books will follow Aram, a 12-year-old boy washed ashore with little more than a sketchbook and a magical compass. He has to find his way back home, adventuring and making friends along the way.

Teaching a computer to play Go at a superhuman level is cool, but not especially useful for you or me. But what if a computer could read a few dozen pages of text, like the manual for a new microwave, and then answer questions about how it works? Reading and comprehending text is incredibly difficult for computers, but a Canadian company called Maluuba has made progress with an algorithm that can read text and answer questions about it with impressive accuracy. Most importantly, unlike other approaches, it works with just small amounts of text. It might eventually help computers "comprehend" documents.

Over the last several years, artificial intelligence (AI) has shifted from being an esoteric branch of computer science to an everyday technology that most of us carry in a pocket or purse--AI is what drives Apple's Siri, Facebook's photo-tagging, Spotify playlists and Google's auto-complete, just for starters. But can we also expect that someday soon AI will report and write the important news of the day--and technology stories like this one? Well, guess what: It already has. First, a bit of background: Many of the most exciting AI advances are driven by research in cognitive computing and natural language generation (NLG) processing, which allow computers to analyze massive quantities of data and generate a plain English document that highlights the most important insights. Those advances are made stronger through deep learning, a field of AI that uses neural networks to teach computers to sift through massive amounts of data to find their own patterns.

Martine Rothblatt, the highest paid female CEO in the U.S., founded and runs a biopharmaceutical company, United Therapeutics. She took home 38 million dollars in 2013. Bloomberg's Olivia Sterns sat down with Dr. Rothblatt and her latest invention -- a robot. Bloomberg Television offers extensive coverage and analysis of international business news and stories of global importance. It is available in more than 310 million households worldwide and reaches the most affluent and influential viewers in terms of household income, asset value and education levels.

The radio spectrum is a mess: it's congested, expensive and there's no room for expansion. But DARPA has a plan to change that, by building a system where radio waves can work together using artificial intelligence, rather than fighting for space. DARPA launched its latest Grand Challenge last week, and it plans to encourage researchers around the world to develop "smart systems that collaboratively, rather than competitively, adapt in real time to today's fast-changing, congested spectrum environment... to maximize the flow of radio frequency". That sounds exciting, because making radio frequency flow more easily means -- theoretically, at least -- faster data rates, fewer dropped signals, and cheaper connections. How does it plan to do it?

You could soon be sharing the sidewalk with robots in D.C. A test project will be presented to District leaders to allow delivery robots to operate on city sidewalks. WASHINGTON - You could soon be sharing the sidewalk with robots in D.C. A test project will be presented to District leaders to allow delivery robots to operate on city sidewalks. These robots could be delivering your takeout meal or maybe some fresh groceries.