These AI language processing innovations range from smart alphabet toys that are designed to language-teaching apps that focus on multiple dialects. A winning example includes Marbotic's'Smart Letters' toy that pairs classic wooden letters with an iPad app. Once paired together with a digital interface, the block letters create an augmented reality play experience that is also educational. Other standouts in this realm include a myriad of intuitive chatbots -- from examples that detect users' moods by decoding their mobile messaging history to others that help users manage their money more seamlessly. Additional AI language processing innovations include talkative smartphone toys and emotional intelligence robots that are able to understand the words and phrases of users -- so much so that they can answer their questions or engage in full-on conversations.

Eck told the festival's music-savvy attendees about his team's new ideas about how to teach computers to help musicians write music--generate harmonies, create transitions in a song, and elaborate on a recurring theme. The format has come a long way since 1990s Geocities pages and games like Doom, thanks to better computing power, digital samplers, and recent movements like "Black MIDI," in which MIDI musicians like Lee saturate a digital musical score with so many notes, typically in the thousands or millions, that little white peers through. The state of the art in training computers is deep learning, artificial learning that uses neural networks, a method of storing information that loosely approximates the information processing of the brain and nervous system. In computer vision, where deep learning has become the standard machine learning technique, scientists know how a computer learns through a neural network when the computer knows what shapes to look for in an image.

"The holy grail of a chatbot or virtual assistant is to help you adjust your behavior, telling you when to save more or spend in order to reach certain goals," said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech research for Autonomous Research. Could UBS clients soon be serviced by voice-controlled AI? Maybe not yet, but a new pilot program between the bank and Amazon's Alexa service is testing the frontiers of both science fiction and wealth management. UBS' partnership with Amazon will enable clients and non-clients of the bank to get answers to financial and economic questions, ranging from what is inflation to how the U.S. economy is faring. It's the latest example of how wealth management firms are experimenting with new technologies such as data analytics and artificial intelligence to expand or reinvent the business.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is the next evolutionary leap to go from sci-fi imagination to a transformative reality with the potential to enhance our lives in unprecedented ways. Like the internet, the only way we are going to harness the capabilities and tap the possibilities of AI technologies is by crafting smart policies that allow these innovations to flourish while guarding against unwanted potential impacts. ITI understands that the tech industry has a responsibility to engage and educate lawmakers around the globe and the public, which is why we launched ITI Decodes. This series quickly breaks down and explains complex issues such as encryption, the internet of things, global data flows, global value chains, and artificial intelligence (AI). If you don't know the definition of AI, you're not alone.

Nine times out of ten, when you hear about deep learning breaking a new technological barrier, Convolutional Neural Networks are involved. Also called CNNs or ConvNets, these are the workhorse of the deep neural network field. They have learned to sort images into categories even better than humans in some cases. If there's one method out there that justifies the hype, it is CNNs. What's especially cool about them is that they are easy to understand, at least when you break them down into their basic parts. I'll walk you through it.

IBM Watson may be coming soon to an enterprise iOS app near you, the company announced at the IBM World of Watson 2016 event on Tuesday. In a first-of-its-kind move, IBM MobileFirst for iOS apps can now integrate Watson technology to enhance decision-making, productivity, and the employee experience. With Watson's cognitive and conversational capabilities, these enterprise apps will be able to understand, reason, and learn using data analytics, according to a press release. "Apple and IBM set out more than two years ago to define the enterprise mobility market, ensuring that professionals could finally enjoy at work the same experience they'd come to expect as consumers," said Mahmoud Naghshineh, general manager, Apple partnership at IBM, in a press release. "We are taking that to a whole new level by combining the power of Watson with the new speech framework of iOS 10. The combinations and possibilities are virtually endless."

When talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is easy to be drawn to the sci-fi storylines. As we've talked about in this blog before, the way Artificial Intelligence is depicted in films or in stories is often very stark and dramatized for theatrical effect. And who can blame Hollywood? "Robots destroy the human race" sells much more tickets than "AI takes over all of humanity's highly repetitive, boring tasks." This dichotomy between humans and AI is a very common theme. An article written by Tracy Wang explores this idea at length: what if the discussion on AI technology was more than just humans versus computers?

The most basic form of competitive analysis is to examine what other companies in your field are doing to meet the needs of customers. While that effort certainly remains relevant, when it comes to online and mobile experiences it's important to remember that your customers are likely comparing your offerings to those of digital-first organizations operating in completely different industries. This is top of mind for technology professionals at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML), which has tripled its digital budget in 2016. "Our customers don't benchmark us against banks," said Hari Gopalkrishnan, CIO of client-facing platform technology, in an interview with InformationWeek. We spoke with Gopalkrishnan and other BofAML technology executives during the company's 8th Annual Technology Innovation Summit in Menlo Park, Calif., October 19 and 20.

No longer the stuff of speculative fiction, artificial intelligence is on the cusp of disrupting every aspect of how we do our jobs and live our lives. Here are just three ways in which AI is having an impact on the creative industries. It's been proven over and over that the best advertising content is something which provokes an involuntary emotional reaction in the viewer. AI is already being used to edit videos which follow an emotional arc, encompassing a range of different feelings but always ending on a happy or satisfying note. There's even evidence to suggest that AIs are, in fact, better at tugging on our heartstrings than real people.

Computers can now keep SECRETS: Google's neural network is learning to encrypt its own messages Experts like Professor Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence becoming too smart and turning against humanity. Now it seems a team at Google has brought computing another step towards this nightmare becoming a reality, by teaching its networks to keep secrets. The computer systems have learn how to protect their messages away from prying eyes. Ateam at Google has taught its networks to keep secrets. Just last week, Professor Stephen Hawking warned artificial intelligence could develop a will of its own that is in conflict with that of humanity.