Artificial intelligence "will soon destroy millions of human jobs," warned Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency, a speaker at Tata Communications' CEO Summit 2016 earlier this month. "In five years most companies will have armies of very cheap, very powerful machines, connected to a smart cloud, and they will be able to accomplish so many routine processes," the Zurich-based futurist said. "Some 25 years from now machines, through cognitive computing and using vast amounts of data from humans, will do all of that kind of work." A select cluster of 60 business leaders attended the two-day conference at Coworth Park in Ascot, which both educated and provoked. It addressed concerns but also flagged up potential opportunities.

RAVN Systems, experts in Artificial Intelligence and Search, are pleased to announce the release of their latest white paper on "The Power of Understanding Artificial Intelligence in the Legal World. As we head towards The Age of Artificial Intelligence what does this mean for the legal market? RAVN's suite of Artificial Intelligence solutions are leading the charge in legal innovation along with a handful of other providers. Truly understanding what each of these legal technologies can do can be somewhat daunting for lawyers and law firms. RAVN's white paper helps demystify AI and uncovers various use cases of RAVN's AI technology.

Narrative Science, winner of Qlik's 2016 Innovative Partner of the Year Award, and Bardess Group, winner of Qlik's 2016 Global Solution Provider of the Year Award, are joining forces to bring even more innovative products to our clients. Narrative Science is the leader in advanced natural language generation for the enterprise. Its QuillTM platform, an intelligent system, analyzes data from disparate sources, understands what is interesting and important to the end user, and then automatically generates perfectly written narratives for any intended audience, at unlimited scale. A diverse range of companies such as USAA, American Century Investments, MasterCard, and the U.S. intelligence community utilize Quill to increase efficiency through the elimination of time-consuming, manual processes related to analyzing data and communicating insights, freeing employees to focus on high-value activities and better serving their customers. Together, our solutions and experience will allow business professionals in any industry the capability to gain clear and natural insight into their data.

A new study found that physicians have a surprisingly poor knowledge of the benefits and harms of common medical treatments. And, as Aaron Carroll pointed out, it's not just that they were off, but "it's how off they often were." Anyone out there who still don't think artificial intelligence (AI) is needed in health care? The authors noted that previous studies have found that patients often overestimate benefits as well, but tended to minimize potential harms. Not only do physicians overestimate harm, they "underestimate how often most treatments have no effects on patients -- either harmful or beneficial."

Earlier this year, Andreessen Horowitz investor Chris Dixon noted that how challenging it's become for investors to help groom promising AI startups, given how quickly Facebook, Google, and Amazon are bringing aboard related talent. Dixon noted, for example, that Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup that built voice-activated interfaces that Facebook bought and which now powers its Messenger platform, was only in Andreessen Horowitz's portfolio for a few months when Facebook bought it. But firm co-founder Marc Andreessen said on stage at Disrupt today that the firm is beginning to see things swing in the opposite direction. "Two years ago, it seemed like four or five companies were hoovering up all the talent . . . I think something like 1,500 people over four years [were involved in] building Alexa," the technology that powers Amazon's voice-controlled home computer Echo.

BEIJING – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earned unusual praise from Chinese netizens Wednesday -- but for the quality of his calligraphy, rather than his diplomacy. Beijing and Tokyo are at loggerheads over disputed islands and wartime history, and Abe has raised hackles with his criticism of his neighbor's assertiveness in the South China Sea. But the Japanese leader was lauded after he purportedly left a hand-written note in Chinese thanking a cleaner at the hotel he stayed in for the G-20 summit in Hangzhou last week. It gave Abe's name, title and the date, adding: "Thanks." It was posted on China's Twitter-like Weibo last week by a journalist who founded what is said to be Japan's largest Chinese-language news website, and had been reposted more than 700 times by Wednesday.

The technologies defining the'Fourth Industrial Revolution', or Industry 4.0, are being powered by cloud infrastructures. The Oracle report, Cloud: Opening up the Road to Industry 4.0 has found that from robotics to artificial intelligence, businesses view the cloud as a blank canvas upon which to build their innovation strategies. The research investigated how companies in EMEA are managing the transition to Industry 4.0 and sheds light on which technologies they are investing in to continue succeeding in the data-driven age. Most companies also recognise a cloud infrastructure is required to bring these technologies to life – 60% believe an enterprise cloud platform provides the opportunity for organisations to capitalise on innovation such as robotics and artificial intelligence. Encouragingly, a large majority of businesses are on course with their plans to establish a single integrated cloud model across their organisation.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Facebook's efforts to get users, developers, and clients excited about chatbots appear to have paid off. Despite only being launched in April during Facebook's F8 developer conference, there are now more than 30,000 bots on the Messenger Platform, up from 11,000 in July. However, this hype could be hurting adoption and use of the technology.

The typical HR function has gone much transformation. This is due to the more involved role that HR plays within the organization, including molding the organization to be in step with the overall business and helping achieve the strategic objectives of the entire organization. Various steps have helped HR undergo transformation. For example, portions of HR services, such as payroll, recruitment, learning, and benefits administration, have been given to specialist external providers to deliver. Also, attempts to keep step with consumer-centric industries has upgraded HR services with employee-focused features such as digital and mobile employee self-service channels.

New robot-style tech is designed to "think like a lawyer" Uber-traditional magic circle outfit Slaughter and May has become the latest firm to put pen to paper on a deal that will see it use artificial intelligence (AI). The system (or cool robot as Legal Cheek likes to think of it) is called Luminance, and has been created by a team of lawyers and mathematicians. Thanks to financial backing from Invoke Capital -- a technology investment fund -- and research and development courtesy of the University of Cambridge, Luminance will, according to its creators, "transform the legal due diligence process." Luminance, which appears to be some sort of super legal mind, will be able to read (and understand) hundreds of pages of complex legal documentation every minute. According to Luminance's CEO, Emily Foges, the AI system will be "trained to think like a lawyer."