Artificial intelligence continues to have its moment in the spotlight, with a surge of interest in startups and efforts from huge tech companies to push the boundaries of how we might best use machine learning, computer vision and other areas of AI in the future. The latest development on that front comes from China's Huawei, which today announced that it would form a research partnership with UC Berkeley focused on AI, and fund it to the initial tune of 1 million. The alliance, between Huawei's Noah's Ark Laboratory and Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR), is being billed as a "strategic partnership into basic research", and it will cover areas like deep learning, reinforcement learning, machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision. "The two parties believe that this strategic partnership will fuel the advancement of AI technology and create completely new experiences for people, thus contributing greatly to society at large," Huawei notes. Some of these areas of AI you will have heard a lot about already.

But the really exciting part about this trend is the increasing ability to marry robotics with artificial intelligence. When this happens, robotics and machinery don't need to be programmed to perform certain tasks…they learn by trial and error. But first, there are three things that must come together to make advanced AI possible: Big Data, the computer-programming technique of deep learning and new concepts in both computer chips and how to use them. Big Data is the virtually limitless wilderness of facts, videos, infographics, statistics, public records and everything else stored on and collected from the internet. Software tools allow researchers to mine data to find useful nuggets -- they're digital needles in this infinite haystack of facts and information.

Can a chatbot help you manage your money? Three London-based fintech startups are betting on the answer being yes and have jumped aboard the messaging gravy train as they seek to entice millennials to their respective platforms. The thinking goes something like this: A conversational interface, coupled with tech that plugs into your bank account and analyses your spending in the background, is the best way to deliver financial assistance to help you keep track of your money and actually save for a rainy day. More broadly these chatbots are targeting millennials who, they claim, typically aren't as financially savvy as they could be and who are perfectly comfortable communicating entirely through emoji. Choosing to announce news or fully launch today are Plum, Chip, and Cleo, which is a little awkward.

Lili Cheng is a general manager for Microsoft Research focusing on conversational experiences, bots, and intelligence systems. Lili's team is responsible for the Microsoft Bot Framework (part of Cortana Intelligence) as well as bringing together the community of bot creators, channels, tools, and AI experts in events such as Botness, Microsoft Research's Design Expo, and the Social Computing Symposium. Previously, Lili was director of user experience for Microsoft Windows and also worked in Apple Computer's Advanced Technology group on the User Interface research team, where she focused on Quicktime conferencing and Quicktime VR. Lili is a registered architect; she worked in Tokyo and Los Angeles for Nihon Sekkei and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on commercial urban design and large-scale building projects. She has taught in NYU's Interactive Telecommunications program as well as at Harvard University.

Kurosawa-inspired bickering buddies C-3PO and R2-D2 have been bleep-blooping benevolently across our screens for nearly four decades, and the ranks of kindly machine heroes have been boosted in more recent times by Brad Bird's Iron Giant, Pixar's Wall-E and Baymax from Disney's Big Hero Six. One moment a high-flying corporate executive at Detroit's top mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products, the next splayed out on a display table, body peppered with automatic gunfire, after getting on the wrong side of the latest (if not necessarily greatest) in automated policing, Robocop's mighty Ed209. Paul Verhoeven's searing 1987 satire on corporate greed imagined a future in which the replacement of human beings with machines begins to spin horribly and inexorably out of control. Not according to killer robot expert Bonnie Docherty of Harvard University, who wrote recently that military robots with the ability to fire on targets independently of human control are swiftly moving towards reality thanks to rapid improvements in artificial intelligence. See also: The Terminator, Yul Brynner's Gunslinger from the 1973 Westworld movie.

At the end it is capable of giving not only pragmatical advice but also emotional ones. For instance, if you are traveling into a new city, it could automatically suggest you activities which you might be interested in or link you with people who you would prefer. However, the social side for the improved AI is just the top of the Iceberg. By reviewing the space progress it is clearly visualized that the humans are pretty primitive. Hence, an AI which could design, develop and implement products by its own. This could make a huge impact and support the development in the space industry. The AIOS ( AI Operation System) could be the base for the next milestone, for the human being. Therefore, I would like to introduce you my "prototype" which I will explain briefly during my next articles. Feel free to contact me via LinkedIn or via my international Number: 44 7 414 139 903 (Please consider the time difference [UTC 01:00] and I would appreciate it, by message me first due to my numerous appointments and meetings.

Futurist Tom Cheesewright has set out his vision for non-executive boards, saying not every member will be human. Speaking at the launch event for In Touch Networks, formally Directors Online Network, Cheesewright said there will be an element of A.I in years to come. The founder of applied futurism practice, "Book of the Future" addressed a gathering of 30 attendees at the company's new Peninsula building offices. Delving into what the future holds for company boards he said: "Successful organisations are like athletes. They need to see what is coming, be really fit and have the right reflexes to respond."

From job automation to fears of a robot uprising, the growth of artificial intelligence has spurred numerous concerns over the future of humanity, many of which have long been stoked by science fiction. But now, the tech giants of Silicon Valley are working to take on the most pertinent challenges before they can even arise. Researchers with Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft have teamed up to create a new group, known as the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, to develop a standard of ethics for the development of AI. Researchers with Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft have teamed up to create the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. 'The objective of the Partnership on AI is to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society,' a statement said.

IBM Australia is looking to maintain its first-mover advantage in the burgeoning enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) space by putting more resources behind its cognitive drive. The vendor has spent 2016 arming its commercial operation with a new team that has the industry domain knowledge to drive Watson harder into specific verticals. Its local Research team has revealed involvement in cutting-edge projects for IBM's nascent Watson Health business, as well as around neuromorphic computing, which is seen as the next evolution of Watson. Since IBM created the US 1 billion ( 1.3 billion) Watson Group in 2014, the vendor has been selling business on the benefits of cognitive computing, while at the same time trying to create as many applications and use cases for the technology as it can. While these efforts were initially internally-driven, the growth of Watson over the past two years has increased the number of people and organisations working with the technology, with a growing amount of this work being done behind the scenes.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Fintech Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Plum, which claims to be the first AI-powered Facebook chatbot, raised 500,000 in a seed round that closed on Friday, according to a press release seen by BI Intelligence. Plum wants to help millennials save money by automating the process for them. It was founded by Victor Troukoudes and Alex Michael, formerly of fintechs TransferWise and Tictail, respectively.