Glancing around school classrooms in 2016, it's easy to miss just how far technology has transformed learning over the last decade. The desks, whiteboards and rows of chairs are the same, but so much else has changed that can't be seen. A third of Britain's schools are asking students to bring their own tablets and laptops into the classroom now, coding has been on the national curriculum for three years, and more and more education is happening outside school through apps and digital services. But these changes are just the start. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the next giant leap in learning and, according to those working in the field of education and technology, we haven't seen anything yet.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is launching a new online "chatbot" that will answer customers' questions online and help direct them to the right places. The new online tool, dubbed "Luvo," will begin helping 10% of the bank's customers online from December, according to an emailed statement sent to Business Insider. It will be a web chat tool: as you're browsing, a little chat window will likely pop up and ask if you need any help. The rollout follows a 2-month trial of the tool with the 1,200 RBS staff handling small business inquiries. These staff could direct the SMEs to Luvo to help them with things like lost pins or corporate cards.

The Pentagon's oft-repeated line on artificial intelligence is this: we need much more of it, and quickly, in order to help humans and machines work better alongside one another. But a survey of existing weapons finds that the U.S. military more commonly uses AI not to help but to replace human operators, and, increasingly, human decision making. The report from the Elon Musk-funded Future of Life Institute does not forecast Terminators capable of high-level reasoning. At their smartest, our most advanced artificially intelligent weapons are still operating at the level of insects … armed with very real and dangerous stingers. So where does AI exist most commonly on military weapons? The study, which looked at weapons in military arsenals around the world, found 284 current systems that include some degree of it, primarily standoff weapons that can find their own way to a target from miles away.

Apple has bought a big data and machine learning startup called TupleJump. The deal was first report on TechCrunch, and Apple confirmed it to the site with the usual statement that it occasionally buys...

According to Carson Sweet of cloud security firm CloudPassage, many companies are asking for machine learning tools to solve problems--even if they don't have a clear idea of what these tools can do. As Mark Terenzoni of threat detection firm Sqrrl explained, AI is like building a brain, but one that is unable to produce deterministic outcomes (ones that will produce a predictable outcome) -- that's why mischief makers were able to manipulate Microsoft's AI chat bot into spewing racist comments. Mahaffey, in response to a question from moderator Jonathan Vanian of Fortune, also clarified the difference between "machine learning" and "deep learning." It turns to be a question of scale: deep learning describes the recent breakthroughs in computer power and cost that makes it possible for machine learning tools to explore millions of parameters.

Zalando Tech is embarking on an exciting new chapter in its evolution. We've recently launched Zalando Research – an endeavour to place Zalando at the forefront of cutting-edge research, to complement our already strong foothold on technology. Why are we doing this? We already boast great researchers at Zalando Tech, so we want to give them an outlet where they can be better organised and aligned. We also want to have a greater impact in the tech research community, especially in the fields of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Botmetrics allows bot makers to collect and act on detailed chat bot metrics with minimal code for Kik, Facebook, Slack bots. Today, we're proud to announce that we're launching Open Source Botmetrics: the first and only open source, enterprise grade, business analytics and engagement platform built for chat and voice bots.

Artificial intelligence has long been heralded as a new technology with the power to change the world, but typically it is its demonstrative applications, like composing music or beating human players at board games, that make the headlines. Now, Microsoft has announced plans to unleash the power of AI in a manner that's more likely to benefit the average user, via new Office 365 functionality. "We have reached a point in our industry where the collective power of technology exceeds that of the individual," reads a blog post by Microsoft's executive vice president of worldwide business, Judson Althoff. "Where, in a matter of hours, a person can generate insights that previously would have taken days." Microsoft is looking to help individuals put this power to good use.

Natural disasters are out of the reach and influence of human beings. However, a lot can be done to minimize loss of lives. Artificial intelligence is one viable option that can potentially prevent massive loss of lives while at the same time make rescue efforts easy and efficient. To learn more, checkout the infographic below created by Eastern Kentucky University's Online Masters in Safety degree program. In the period between 2005 and 2015, a total of 242 natural disasters occurred in the United States of America.

We alluded to the possibility of Deep Learning and IoT previously where we said that Deep learning algorithms play an important role in IoT analytics because Machine data is sparse and / or has a temporal element to it. Devices may behave differently at different conditions. Hence, capturing all scenarios for data pre-processing/training stage of an algorithm is difficult. Deep learning algorithms can help to mitigate these risks by enabling algorithms learn on their own. This concept of machines learning on their own can be extended to machines teaching other machines.