Splunk has traditionally been a tool to ingest, index and enable searching across vast bodies of data from multiple disparate sources. Rick Fitz, Vice Presidents of IT Markets, explains the driving forces behind the introduction of machine learning, announced this week at the 7th annual Splunk conference, .conf Data doesn't live in a vacuum. Fitz states, "the goal of the data is how do I make better business decisions?" Consequently, Splunk has announced both a machine learning toolkit, and also the packaging of specific pre-built algorithms in a very consumable way within its IT Service Intelligence product.

Artificial Intelligence is the latest technological development which seems to be promising as well. With this in mind, five of the world's biggest technological companies have collaborated to shed light on this concept. The entities collaborating are Facebook, Google along with its DeepMind subsidiary, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM. This group will develop a non-profit organization which will concentrate solely on AI research groups and academics. This collaboration is known as The Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society.

A new partnership of some of the biggest names in the technology world will seek to explore the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI). Amazon, Google, DeepMind (owned by Google), Facebook, IBM and Microsoft have formed a non-profit organisation that will seek to unite AI experts and knowledge called the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. The group says that it will support research and recommend best practices in areas including "ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency and interoperability; privacy; collaboration between people and AI systems; and of the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology." This will include creating an open platform for engagement, where researchers and stakeholders can discuss AI-related issues. It will also aim to engage experts across multiple disciplines in academia, including psychology, philosophy, economics, finance, sociology, public policy, and law, aiming to produce informational materials on the topic. It will also support third-party studies and engage AI users and developers, as well as industries that may be impacted by AI.

The Terminator isn't arriving anytime soon, but concern is growing that artificial intelligence is already so pervasive in society--and getting more so all the time--that there needs to be more focus on how it's being used and potentially misused (even if by accident). Aside from futuristic killer robots, there are already real dangers ranging from faulty autonomous cars to algorithms used in hiring or recruiting that have an inadvertent bias against women or ethnic groups. The giants of artificial intelligence, especially as it affects consumers and businesses, have just joined together to form a nonprofit called the Partnership on AI, with founding members Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft. It's the latest effort to keep a collective eye on how AI is developed and used. OpenAI, founded in December 2015, has a similar goal of conducing research and conferences to promote responsible use of AI.

Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft have announced they are forming a non-for-profit organisation to educate the public about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, as well as alleviate anxieties around its application. The collective, which includes Google's AI subsidiary DeepMind, also plans to develop best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field of AI. The organisation, called Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI), will address legal and ethical challenges that AI presents, encourage public discourse, and identify opportunities to use AI to bring improvements to society. The organisation does not intend to be a regulatory body, with a statement saying it does "not intend to lobby government or other policymaking bodies." Members of the Partnership on AI will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology.

Automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning were key themes at the Structure Security conference in San Francisco, Calif. For business tech leaders, the bottom line is that security and automation are blending together. The trick for tech buyers will be to sort through what platforms are legit versus mere marketing and buzzwords. Automation, automation, automation - Jay Leek, chief information security officer at private equity firm Blackstone, said his company started an effort to automate investigations and rote security task and other items in a bid to alleviate a security talent crunch and boost productivity. The upshot: Leek's security analysts do more high-value work, and initial investigations now take 40 seconds.

The initiative's website explains its tenet as follows: "We believe that artificial intelligence technologies hold great promise for raising the quality of people's lives and can be leveraged to help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health and education." All five founding companies have huge AI projects. IBM, as you know, has Watson, while Google has DeepMind, which you probably recognize as the the team behind AlphaGo. Amazon has Alexa, the voice assistance that's loaded onto its Echo speakers, while Microsoft has Cortana and a whole bunch of chatbot projects. Finally, Facebook depends on artificial intelligence for many of its features, including face recognition and its News Feed.

Researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland have used machine learning to predict the thermodynamic characteristics of 90 new mineral compounds with potential commercial use. The machine learning models were able to predict the chemical stability of all possible iterations of a particular type of class of crystals several orders of magnitude faster than if the researchers had relied on quantum mechanical calculations. The class of compounds in this case was elpasolite, a crystalline material that in nature is made up of four chemical elements: sodium, potassium, aluminum, and fluorine. Some elpasolites emit light when exposed to ionic radiation, which makes them candidates for scintillators, a material that can be used in devices like radiation detectors, CT scanners, and various types of medical diagnostic equipment. Elpasolites could also have applications in electronic equipment, since it can serve as a conductor, semiconductor or insulator, depending upon its specific composition.

New technologies will change the way you practice. YOUR COMPLIMENTARY 15-DAY LAW.COM TRIAL HAS ENDED.