What is A.I. or artificial intelligence but the'space of possible minds', argues Murray Shanahan, scientific advisor on the movie Ex Machina and Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London. But where are we now in the A.I. evolution? What players do we think will lead, if not win, the current race? And how should we think about issues such as ethics and automation of jobs without descending into obvious extremes? All this and more, including a surprise easter egg in Ex Machina shared by Shanahan, whose work influenced the movie.

Every Monday morning, 75 million Spotify users logon to their devices and play a "Discover Weekly" playlist that's been curated to their musical preferences. Unbeknownst to many, the custom playlist they're enjoying was curated by a machine learning algorithm that has learned their unique musical preferences based on previous interactions with songs, musicians, and playlists. Machine learning, and a more advanced technology called deep learning, are types of artificial intelligence that allow a computer to learn information based on the data it is given. To borrow the words of Drew Breunig, "In a nutshell, deep learning is human recognition at computer scale." Essentially, the more information the computer is given, the better it can learn -- and in the case of platforms like Spotify or Netflix, the more interaction you have with the program, the better it can recommend music, movies, or TV shows that you'll like.

Could a computer be better at identifying depression than a primary care physician? That's the suggestion of a new study that focused on using machine learning to analyze Instagram photos. The study, conducted by a researcher from the department of psychology at Harvard University and another from the University of Vermont, analyzed nearly 44,000 photographs posted to Instagram, exploring factors like what filter was used and how makes "likes" a photo received. The study included photographs from 166 people, some of whom were depressed, and some of whom were not. Instagram offers a variety of filters to change how a photo appears, and the researchers discovered that healthy participants were more likely to use a filter than depressed people.

In movies artificial intelligence is usually depicted with sci-fi images of robots, cyborgs and other dehumanized creatures. For many, the word is misunderstood and creepy. The truth is AI is helping us live more self-actualized lives in more ways than we can imagine. The intersection of AI technology and human communication is a hotbed of activity as chatbots and virtual assistants become requirements for everyday tasks and productivity. The artificial intelligence that powers so many of the products we know and love can be divided into two categories: conversational and experiential. Customer service chatbots, Siri, airline phone menus and even Google are great examples of the types of conversational AI we encounter in day-to-day life.

Pokemon Go can make it seem like a cute Caterpie is sitting right there in your cup of coffee (eww). It's clearly just a cartoon image superimposed over the image your phone is capturing. But what if that Caterpie could react to the coffee, splash it around or drink it, as if it really were swimming in your Starbucks cup? Though the videos have been live since August 2, attention from Reddit sparked fresh interest on Friday. Lead researcher Abe Davis, a computer science Ph.D. candidate working in computer graphics, even stopped by the site to chime in.

Slate and Future Tense are discussing Mr. Robot and the technological world it portrays throughout the show's second season. You can follow this conversation on Future Tense, and Slate Plus members can also listen to Hacking Mr. Robot, a members-only podcast series featuring Lily Newman and Fred Kaplan. In this episode of Hacking Mr. Robot, Fred and Lily discuss Episode 7. Fred Kaplan is the author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War.

FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2011, file photo, vehicles drive along the Ohio Turnpike in Strongsville, Ohio. Ohio Turnpike Executive Director Randy Cole tells The Associated Press that testing of self-driving vehicles could begin on the toll road in late 2016 or in 2017. Cole says the route that takes Interstate 80 from Pennsylvania to Indiana is set up well for testing autonomous vehicles because it already has a fiber network along the entire roadway.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is enjoying one of its periodic moments in the limelight. Some of this we can put down to the ongoing fascination Hollywood seems to have with AI. From Stanley Kubrick's 2001 to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Stephen Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence to Alex Garland's Ex Machina; Hollywood has made enjoyable films and good money out of AI. These films have inspired generations of AI students. Indeed AI was once described as making computers that behave like the ones in the movies!

Creating original branded content solves many problems for marketers, but also presents challenges -- among them distribution and realizing ROI from what can be a costly investment. Time Inc., CBS and Telepictures are among hundreds of publishers working with IRIS.TV, which recently introduced a product to manage the distribution of branded content. Its video personalization solution uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technology so publishers can automate the programming of their video libraries for the individual based on that person's preferences and behavior. We spoke with Rohan Castelino, director of business development and marketing with IRIS.TV, about how this works. While brands are increasingly looking to partner to create content to engage Millennials, how can publishers deliver guaranteed audiences to watch this content at scale while maintaining their editorial standards and trust with audiences?