In this guest post, regular B&T contributor and industry veteran Robert Strohfeldt harks back to the good old days of marketing and tells us why artificial intelligence will never replace real-life creative intelligence. After seeing a recent report that Think TV is planning to use Artificial Intelligence for ratings, I tried to think back to when this "digital" madness stated. Only an idiot would deny that technology has added both quality and quantity to our lives. To those who hanker for the "good old days", I will give you one word to make you realise how much better things are in 2016 compared to 1916 – Dentist. But is technology now increasing at a rate which can be overwhelming?

My team and I attended several legaltech-focused conferences this month and of course, as expected, machine learning and AI were the topics that everyone wanted to discuss in between sessions. Yet interestingly, at the Emerging Legal Technology Forum put on by Legalx, one of the panelists -- Mark Tamminga, leader of innovation initiatives at Gowling WLG -- was against using these terms in reference to emerging legal technologies. He pointed out that often what is being called AI is really not that at all, and felt that these words were being used as fancy buzzwords that escape the real mechanics of these technologies. As someone deeply involved in the development community here in Toronto, I wholeheartedly agree with his perspective. Many of the conversations occurring in legaltech around what people are calling machine learning are actually algorithmic solutions preprogrammed (that's right, programmed by humans) to do a particular task; nothing that deviates greatly from anything that's already been done many years ago.

Matt Zeiler grew up in a Canadian farming community -- but fast forward a few decades and he's now running a startup that's looking to bring the same kinds of visual search tools that Pinterest and Google have to other companies and developers. That company is Clarifai, a New York-based startup that offers developers the ability to tag metadata to photos in such a way that the company algorithmically learns what kinds of objects are in photos. With that, Clarifai developers can train algorithms to be able to search for those objects, or input their own photos in order to find similar objects. The company said today that it has raised $30 million. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, with Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital and others participating.

As artificial intelligence (AI) begins to power more technology across industries, it's been truly exciting to see what our community of developers can create with Watson. Developers are inspiring us to advance the technology that is transforming society, and they are the reason why such a wide variety of businesses are bringing cognitive solutions to market. With AI becoming more ubiquitous in the technology we use every day, developers need to continue to sharpen their cognitive computing skills. They are seeking ways to gain a competitive edge in a workforce that increasingly needs professionals who understand how to build AI solutions. It is for this reason that today at World of Watson in Las Vegas we announced with Udacity the introduction of a Nanodegree program that incorporates expertise from IBM Watson and covers the basics of artificial intelligence. The "AI Nanodegree" program will be helpful for those looking to establish a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence.

AI has a long way to go before people can or should worry about turning the world over to machines. Elon Musk's new plan to go all-in on self-driving vehicles puts a lot of faith in the artificial intelligence needed to ensure his Teslas can read and react to different driving situations in real time. AI is doing some impressive things--last week, for example, makers of the AlphaGo computer program reported that their software has learned to navigate the intricate London subway system like a native. Even the White House has jumped on the bandwagon, releasing a report days ago to help prepare the U.S. for a future when machines can think like humans. But AI has a long way to go before people can or should worry about turning the world over to machines, says Oren Etzioni, a computer scientist who has spent the past few decades studying and trying to solve fundamental problems in AI.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - General Motors and IBM on Tuesday said a jointly created platform would combine the artificial intelligence system Watson with the carmaker's OnStar connectivity service in an effort to market new services to drivers. "OnStar Go," which will debut early next year in more than two million GM vehicles with 4G, is billed as a way to optimize time spent in the car by enhancing in-vehicle experiences, the companies said.

Artificial intelligence is currently making a resurgence since the 1990s. Today, the focus is on machine learning and statistical algorithms. This shift has served AI well. Machine learning and statistics provide effective algorithm solutions to certain kinds of problems, such as board games, spam detection, voice and image recognition, etc. How is AI different today from 20 years ago?

Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't think the future of artificial intelligence will infringe on users' privacy, the way it does now. Responding to a question about Apple's virtual assistant Siri on a call to discuss the company's latest quarterly earnings, Cook said: "In terms of the balance of privacy and AI, this is a long conversation, but at a high level, this is a false tradeoff. People would like you to believe you have to give up privacy to have AI do something for you, but we don't buy that. It might take more work, it might take more thinking, but I don't think we should throw our privacy away. You shouldn't have to make a choice."

AI and machine learning have reached a critical tipping point and will increasingly augment and extend virtually every technology enabled service, thing or application. Creating intelligent systems that learn, adapt and potentially act autonomously rather than simply execute predefined instructions is primary battleground for technology vendors through at least 2020. AI and machine learning (ML), which include technologies such as deep learning, neural networks and natural-language processing, can also encompass more advanced systems that understand, learn, predict, adapt and potentially operate autonomously. Systems can learn and change future behavior, leading to the creation of more intelligent devices and programs. The combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and massive data sets to feed the algorithms has unleashed this new era.

Artificial intelligence, the machine learning technology that allows "smart" machines to take over human tasks like driving cars or ordering pizza, is quickly becoming the go-to technology for many industries to hire talent for, including health care, auto, and finance. Research firm Markets and Markets estimates the AI market will grow to more than $5 billion by 2020, given the rising adoption of AI across these industries. That's why online education company Udacity is debuting a new way for workers to learn skills needed to be experts in developing artificial intelligence for the likes of IBM and others. Udacity originally launched "Nanodegrees" to train people hoping to land technical jobs, such as software developing. Nanodegrees also aim to teach people about the advanced and emerging technologies like self-driving cars or Android development for mobile phones.