At Algorithmia, we believe in democratizing access to state-of-the-art algorithmic intelligence. That's why we're introducing a solution for hosting and distributing trained deep learning models on Algorithmia using GPUs in the cloud. Today, researchers and developers can train their neural nets locally, and deploy them to Algorithmia's scalable, cloud infrastructure, where they become smart API endpoints for other developers to use. We're excited to announce initial native support for the Caffe, Theano, and TensorFlow frameworks, and have added 16 open source deep learning models that run as microservices to start. Support for Torch and MxNet are coming soon.

The so-called "project Malmo" has already been accessible to a small group of computer science researchers for some months, but now it is freely available on the developer platform GitHub. Microsoft bought Minecraft -- an addictive game that allows players to move, interact and build complex objects in a 3D blocky world-in 2014. It is now clear that the Seattle based tech giant had spotted the software's potential for AI applications. According to Microsoft, the new Minecraft-based platform "Project Malmo" will come in handy to research "general artificial intelligence" -- that is a computer that can engage in eminently human activities such as learning new things, having a conversation, making decisions and carrying out tasks. Faculty Summit 2016 opens w/ important announcements: Project Malmo: https://t.co/zEjMvF6OLe

Illustration credit: Anirban BoraBetween the Terminator movies, Ava from'Ex Machina', Google's AlphaGo beating the world's best human Go players, machines mimicking Rembrandt's style to paint portraits, debates about morality and privacy, and Stephen Hawking's warnings about the consequences of intelligent machines manned by idiot humans; it's no wonder that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already made people a little uncomfortable. In the marketing world, it's caused the customary outbreak of confusion. Thus resulting in a series of obtuse declarations like "AI will change everything. EVERYTHING!" that are typical of the industry. Any time anything new threatens to upset business as usual, comrades in the marketing and advertising industry especially lunge headlong into an existential crisis. For instance, "Will AI make the creative kind obsolete?"

This week on the premiere of Mr. Robot, the hacktivist collective fsociety made good on its threat to bring down the evil E Corp. With a few strokes of the keyboard, a USB stick and a little social engineering, the anarchists infected the corporate giant's banking division with ransomware, locking up thousands of files and closing it for business. As the character Darlene prepared her malicious code, real hackers watching no doubt chuckled at the familiar words on her screen: "Hack the Gibson…and remember…hugs are worth more than handshakes." Like so much about the hacking on Mr. Robot, that detail was for them. When these episodes air, I don't watch the episodes, I keep my eye on Reddit and Twitter and see what people are saying about it.

Nowadays you look around and it seems like everyone at the gym or the park is wearing the coloured band of a FitBit, FuelBand, Apple Watch, Jawbone Up or some other activity tracker on their arm. You might very well have one on as you read this. These tools work to collect huge amounts of data about our personal activity, relatively inexpensively and easily. This allows us to quantify how much we do to improve our health by taking measurements of ourselves performing activites such as running, swimming and lifting weights. However, rarely do we try to quantify how well we perform an activity.

Cristina is a malware researcher at Bitdefender's Antimalware Labs. For the past 6 years, she has demonstrated strong expertise in reverse engineering, exploit analysis, threat analysis and automated systems. She has a graduate degree in Computer Science from the "Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University in Iasi and is now pursuing a PhD in Machine Learning theory in malware detection systems.

The firm queried 138 U.S. tech CEOs, and 95 percent expect to increase the size of their workforces over the next three years. Some 55 percent expect to grow at least 6 percent. This growth in tech jobs for humans might have been even larger, however, but some positions will be filled by automation and machine learning systems: about three quarters of the tech CEOs expect automation and machine learning tools to replace at least 5 percent of their sales, marketing, technology, and manufacturing workforces. "The majority of technology companies plan to increase their human workforce at least 6 percent over the next three years while adding cognitive systems to create a new class of digital labor that can enhance human skills and expertise." Does this mean tech companies are going to start issuing reports on their digital labor force?

Elon Musk spoke at MIT for an event marking the 100th anniversary of its Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. During the Q&A session, Elon warned of the civilisation threatening dangers of Artificial Intelligence if not contained.

The next BriefingsDirect business innovation thought leadership discussion focuses on how new modes of buying and evaluating goods and services are disrupting business procurement. We'll hear now from a leading industry analyst on how machine learning, cloud services, and artificial intelligence-enabled human agents are all combining to change the way that companies can order services, buy goods, and even hire employees and contractors. This business process innovation exchange comes to you in conjunction with the Tradeshift Innovation Day held in New York on June 22, 2016. To learn more about how new trends are driving innovation into invoicing and spend management, please join me in welcoming Pierre Mitchell, Chief Research Officer and Managing Director at Azul Partners, where he leads the Spend Matters Procurement research activities. The discussion is moderated by me, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Recently, we have seen artificial intelligence triumph over humans in Jeopardy and chess. And there is a growing presence of virtual assistants like Alexa, Cortana, and Siri that populate our computers, phones, and homes. It's only a matter of time before A.I.-powered assistants play a significant role in the workplace, experts say. In fact, the global intelligent virtual assistant market is forecast to be worth 5.1 billion by 2022, up from – 600 million in 2014, according to Transparency Market Research. What are the potential benefits and challenges of giving smart virtual assistants a home in the enterprise?