It started with the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, Phil Spencer, having to apologise for having scantily clad female dancers dressed as school girls at a party thrown by Microsoft at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). He said that having the dancers at this event "was absolutely not consistent or aligned to our values. That was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated" The matter was being dealt with internally and so we don't know who would have been responsible and why they might have thought this was going to be a good idea. But things were going to get much worse for Microsoft when a chatbot called Tay started tweeting offensive comments seemingly supporting Nazi, anti-feminist and racist views. The idea was that the artificial intelligence behind Tay would learn from others on Twitter and other social media networks and appear as an average 19 year old female person.

If you think artificial intelligence is something coming in the future, think again: Most people already use artificial intelligence on a daily basis, even if they do not think of it as such. Artificial intelligence or AI simply refers to machine learning put into action toward a goal. When you ask Siri or Cortana to call work or remind you about a dentist appointment, you are relying on artificial intelligence. See what AI is already doing in the modern economy and how future developments in the field of artificial intelligence might impact your life. While we tend to speak about artificial intelligence as if it were one thing, according to AI expert Nick Bostrom, there are three predominant types or flavours of artificial intelligence: The oracle, the genie, and the sovereign.

Robo-advisors are currently a prominent topic in fintech as they are disrupting the wealth management industry with their easy-to-use low-cost passive investment management service, which has grown in popularity amongst investors. However, 'robo-advice' is no longer just specific to the wealth management industry. According to Diederick Van Thiel, co-founder of Dutch fintech company AdviceRobo, banks could also use'robo-advice' to predict the creditworthiness of its customers, through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This could be especially beneficial for challenger banks that tailor their services primarily towards millennials who may have limited credit history or no credit score at all. In this case, using the traditional model of assessing a customers credit risk, by taking into account 16 variables of structured data, would not be an effective way of predicting a customer's credit risk.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its integral role in our lives, we often take our vision for granted. Yet our brains devote 20-30 percent of their capacity to visual processing -- ranking sight amongst the most complex intelligence system on Earth. It's no surprise, then, that we've seen numerous efforts in the past decade to replicate the incredible power of vision via the omnipresent supercomputers in our lives. First tested by the American military in the 1950s, the technology holds incredible potential for use across a variety of fields. And with more devices than ever before already equipped with cameras inside, developers today can leverage existing hardware infrastructures for relatively quick and inexpensive implementation of advanced AI capabilities.

Google Deepmind may be dominant at the game of Go, but it's still struggling when it comes to card games like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone. Still, researchers fully intend to push it away from so-called "perfect information" games and towards games that require facing an opponent with secrets. In order to do that, they have to teach the artificial intelligence the fundamental logic behind the cards themselves. In an attempt to see whether they'd managed this trick, Deepmind's minders recently asked the program to create new cards. It did so, but with very limited success.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are each pursuing unique visions of the smart home, the home as an ever-connected smart device. Home automation has been around as long as the PC, but is still struggling to find the right user interface and functionality that will make this compelling. The fundamental question that remains is just how smart do consumers want or need their homes to be? Amazon's answer to this question is simple: smart enough to understand your voice. Last week The Information profiled Tony Fadell and the difficulties Nest has had in introducing new products since being acquired by Alphabet. For those who don't subscribe to The Information there was also a good synopsis of the article in Fortune called The Mess at Nest.

The potential for artificial intelligence has, for decades, been mostly relegated to the larger-than-life imaginations of Hollywood directors. From Blade Runner to Terminator, it always seems to take place in some distant and dystopian future. And yet, if there's one thing to be learned from Google's recent acquisition of the artificial intelligence startup DeepMind for a reported 400 million, it's that the heyday for this type of technology is not a century or even decades away. The global market for artificial intelligence was valued at 900 million in 2013, according to the market research firm Research and Markets. Meanwhile, a study out of Oxford University last year found that in the near future artificially intelligent technology could take over nearly half of all U.S. jobs.

Tesla Motors' (TSLA) poaching of key Apple (AAPL) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) engineers could squeeze graphics-chips partner Nvidia (NVDA), an MKM analyst wrote Monday ahead of Nvidia's April 5 analyst day. But MKM analyst Ian Ing reiterated his buy rating and 39 price target on Nvidia stock, which was up 1% in afternoon trading on the stock market today, earlier touching an eight-year high at 34.98. Nvidia and Tesla have partnered in machine-learning -- widely seen as key to autonomous driving -- for the better part of a decade. Last year, Nvidia's automotive segment grew 80% -- to 320 million in revenue. Together, the duo faces stiff autonomous-driving competition from rivals like General Motors (GM), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Apple.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Ford's Sync 3 communications and entertainment system is displayed during a Ford Motor Co. press event for CES 2016 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on January 5, 2016 in Las Vegas (Photo: Ethan Miller, Getty Images) As we become more reliant on our smartphones, car companies that do a good job integrating them into vehicles' communication, audio and navigation systems have a huge advantage. It shouldn't be asking too much to get into a car, turn the radio on and tune to a station without reading the owner's manual, but frequently it is. So automakers are trying to make their systems as simple as possible, drawing inspiration from the maker of toys for toddlers. "We talk about the Fisher-Price approach: simple design, really big buttons and really large type," said Gary Jablonski, product development manager for Ford's Sync system. Sync drew raves when it debuted as the auto industry's first voice recognition system in 2007.