Some very intelligent people – including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates – seem to have been seduced by the idea that because computers are becoming ever faster calculating devices that at some point relatively soon we will reach and pass a "singularity" at which computers will become "more intelligent" than humans. Some are terrified that a society of intelligent computers will (perhaps violently) replace the human race, echoing films such as the Terminator; others – very controversially – see the development of such technologies as an opportunity to evolve into a "post-human" species. Already, some prominent technologists including Tim O'Reilly are arguing that we should replace current models of public services, not just in infrastructure but in human services such as social care and education, with "algorithmic regulation". Algorithmic regulation proposes that the role of human decision-makers and policy-makers should be replaced by automated systems that compare the outcomes of public services to desired objectives through the measurement of data, and make automatic adjustments to address any discrepancies. Not only does that approach cede far too much control over people's lives to technology; it fundamentally misunderstands what technology is capable of doing. For both ethical and scientific reasons, in human domains technology should support us taking decisions about our lives, it should not take them for us. At the MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy last week I got a chance to discuss some of these issues with Andy McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson, authors of "The Second Machine Age", recently highlighted by Bloomberg as one of the top books of 2014. Andy and Erik compare the current transformation of our world by digital technology to the last great transformation, the Industrial Revolution.

Digital technologies are developing rapidly. During the general meeting of EBG, web gurus took out their crystal balls in trying to predict tomorrow's trends that will constitute the marketing buzz. They foresee that artificial intelligence and the utilisation of our data will be at the centre of development. The focus of the research will involve the advances in artificial intelligence linked in direct relation with humans, and the digital applications that we use in our daily life. Deep learning, the object of major developments, enables systems to perceive the structure of data and to order and orient the request.

While the technology industry is abuzz with new opportunities created by advances in artificial intelligence -- from intelligent web search to voice recognition -- book publishing has yet to feel the full impact of AI. Neil Balthaser intends to change that through his machine learning software Intellogo. Intellogo uses technology that can analyze and understand the contents of a book in order to provide better book recommendations to readers. The technology can also identify reader behavior trends that can inform book publishers' content creation strategy. In the following interview, Balthaser explains how Intellogo's software can help publishers streamline book discovery and how AI will transform the reading experience into a conversation between the reader and the book.

The second AI ZA meetup was held on 21 June 2016 at Entelect's headquarters in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg. The event was packed with over 50 attendees eager to learn about artificial intelligence and machine learning. The goal of this meetup was to continue with a more in depth classification problem as well as run through the introductory concepts for all those that were new to the meetup. Rishal Hurbans and Hennie Brink gave a short talk on classification algorithms. The uses, advantages, and disadvantages of classification algorithms were covered.

The tech paradigm has been changing, or at least, we are made to believe so. We are slowly yet steadily moving towards bots, and that doesn't necessarily mean away from apps, not yet at least. Leading tech companies who usually decide tech trends have made it clear at their respective annual tech events that bots are coming! Chatbots can be described as automated programs to help communicate with businesses, and also make purchases online. With tech businesses' increasing interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning, bots are believed to take the centre stage when it comes to users communicating with said businesses.

You may have heard about the Donald Trump bot army and the Twitter bots that have influenced elections in Latin America, but there are other bots out there, bots that connect citizens to services, bots that plan to crowdsource the election of a president or act as your personal assistant in government. They're going to change civil society, how people interact with government, and the self-governance of free societies. Here are five example of bots that have already impacted or will impact democracy. Dirty Water VT sends a tweet each time a sewage spill occurs in the state of Vermont. Trib IL CampaignCash sends a tweet any time a campaign contribution is made above 1,000 in the state of Illinois.

She's a blast to have around. She's especially fun to shop with. That's when her bubbly, happy-go-lucky personality really comes through. Usually, we walk down an aisle – any aisle will do – and all of a sudden you can see her get excited about something she sees – a product, a sale price, whatever. I tease her that she's like a squirrel – always getting distracted by the next "shiny object". Rats do! She'll kill me if I compare her to a rat, though!)

At first glance, it seems counterintuitive. To learn more about how cells go awry causing disease, it seems logical to focus on the minutiae of a cell's molecular components: the specific genes, proteins, and small molecules that change over time leading to a disease state. Instead, Ernest Fraenkel, MIT associate professor in the Department of Biologic Engineering, first takes a macro view for finding new ways to understand and cure diseases. "When you are faced with making any sense of the 10,000 or 20,000 molecules that are present within a cell and evolve during disease, you need an entirely new approach to figure out what is really important among all the changes you see," Fraenkel explains. He develops computational and laboratory experimental methods to uncover the molecular pathways that go awry in disease and search for new strategies and intervention targets.

Universitat Pompeu Fabra seeks for a PhD candidate to work on the topic of cell segmentation and tracking. The PhD will partially be carried out in the context of the Bioimage Analysis project, which is supported by the Maria de Maeztu Programme for Centres/Units of Excellence in R&D (https://portal.upf.edu/web/mdm-dtic/). The PhD project will also be in collaboration with Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial. The candidate is expected to have a good background in computer vision and machine learning. Knowledge in advanced microscopy imaging is a plus.

Sephora is doubling down on augmented reality and artificial intelligence sales tactics by enabling shoppers to virtually try on false lashes, watch tutorials using their own image and engage via a chatbot to trial and purchase lip color. With Sephora's customers virtually trying on more than 70 million lip shades using the Virtual Artist in-app functionality that was introduced earlier this year, false lashes are being added to expand the program. Users of the Sephora application can also now experience live step-by-step makeup application tutorials using their own uploaded images and augmented reality technology. "This is a significant expansion because we are adding elements that we know will help empower and educate our clients' purchase making decisions, and they're done in a way that is fun and engaging," said Bridget Dolan, vice president of Sephora Innovation Lab. "The new Live Tutorials especially are a game changer for our users," she said.