Artificial intelligence, which uses algorithms and rules-based logic to automate a wide variety of tasks within many verticals, is hot. It occupies the top spot in 2017 tech trend lists from such notable companies as Ericsson and Gartner. Cognitive systems and AI adoption across a broad range of industries are likely to drive worldwide revenues from nearly $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020, according to IDC. Automated customer service agents is one of the key AI areas that attracted investment last year, the research firm noted. "From better purchase recommendations, to smarter customer service that predicts what a consumer is actually trying to do, AI promises to fundamentally transform entire businesses and industries," said Scott Horn, CMO at customer engagement solution provider [24]7.

The workplace is going to look drastically different ten years from now. The coming of the Second Machine Age is quickly bringing massive changes along with it. Manual jobs, such as lorry driving or house building are being replaced by robotic automation, and accountants, lawyers, doctors and financial advisers are being supplemented and replaced by high level artificial intelligence (AI) systems. So what do we need to learn today about the jobs of tomorrow? The robots and computers of the future will be based on a degree of complexity that will be impossible to teach to the general population in a few short years of compulsory education.

What drives it and how do you measure it? We teamed up with the Royal Society to explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning could help us predict, monitor and increase our happiness and wellbeing.

I always end the AI-Academy seminars's introduction with a slide containing this quote by Chris Dixon and in the background a picture of George Hotz in his self-made self-driving car. The message is simple: nowadays everyone can take advantage of Artificial Intelligence without spending years and tons of money in R&D. I strongly believe that this works both in case you want to push the boundaries of technology (George Hotz's style), and in case you want to use some well established AI methodologies to new problems. Since some people were not 100% convinced by this, I decided to prove it and invest some of my time to actually do it. As my business professor at Santa Clara University was used to say, "you've got to taste your dog's food".

If rumors that James Cameron is interested in picking up Terminator 6 prove true, perhaps Bill Gates will be in the running for a cameo. Gates recently cautioned that robots are replacing humans in a wide range of jobs, and he proposed implementing a robot tax as a way to temporarily slow the spread of automation. He was promptly -- and predictably -- trashed by a bevy of economists. Lawrence Summers, the former U.S. treasury secretary, dubbed Gates' plan "protectionism against progress," and others scoffed that the founder of Microsoft had joined the ranks of Luddites. Economic growth has slowed markedly in the past decade, they pointed out.

The technologies making waves in 2017 include brain implants and quantum computers. Here is a list of the top 10 technologies that are expected to be prevalent this year, according to MIT. At the top of the list is behavior-reinforced artificial intelligence. Whether that's mastering the complex game of Go and beating a champion or learning to merge a self-driving car into traffic. The technology is based on reinforcement learning, documented more than a 100 years ago by psychologist Edward Thorndike.

Sony has announced that it will soon end production of the console in Japan. It's likely that it will stop being made everywhere else soon after. The company hasn't announced the date that production will come to an end, or made a public announcement about it. But on Sony's website it lists the 500GB standard model as the only one remaining in production in the country, and states that "shipments are scheduled to end soon". The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Robots have learned how to communicate with each other by creating their own language, a new report explains. Experts at artificial intelligence research group OpenAI conducted an experiment that challenged software bots to complete a series of tasks, such as moving to a specific location, in a simple, two-dimensional virtual world. The team used a technique called reinforcement learning, presenting the challenges as cooperative rather than competitive, and rewarding the robots for completing them. "We've just released initial results in which we teach AI agents to create language by dropping them into a set of simple worlds, giving them the ability to communicate, and then giving them goals that can be best achieved by communicating with other agents," wrote the OpenAI team in a blog post. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Which authors of this paper are endorsers? Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)

This post is the second in a series where we will go over examples of how MapR data scientist Joe Blue assisted MapR customers, in this case a regional bank, to identify new data sources and apply machine learning algorithms in order to better understand their customers. If you have not already read the first part of this customer 360 series, then it would be good to read that first. In this second part, we will cover a bank customer profitability 360 example, presenting the before, during and after. The back story: a regional bank wanted to gain insights about what's important to their customers based on their activity with the bank. They wanted to establish a digital profile via a customer 360 solution in order to enhance the customer experience, to tailor products, and to make sure customers have the right product for their banking style.