It has become a semi-annual tradition here at DATAVERSITY to publish our top twenty most popular data management content year-to-date. Though we monitor topic popularity daily, we like to stop every six months or so to do a deep dive into what subscribers are reading. Our top twenty includes Data Blogs, Articles, Data Dailies (News), and other formats published throughout the year. In January 2015 we merged DATAVERSITY.net We put the Data Topic category of Semantic Technologies under the larger new category of "Smart Data" along with Cognitive Computing, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence.

OpenAI, a nonprofit created by Elon Musk and other tech entrepreneurs to make fundamental breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, has said that one of its big goals will be teaching robots to do the laundry and other household chores. OpenAI doesn't want to make robot hardware itself but, rather, to supply the brains for off-the-shelf bots. You might think that learning to fold underpants is a modest goal, but such dexterity and adaptability is one of the grand challenges of robotics. It also fits with the organization's stated objective to "advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole." Applying the sort of machine-learning techniques OpenAI is working on to robotics should, in fact, have huge practical benefits, and it will be a necessary component of any more general form of artificial intelligence.

Have you recently got a parking ticket? This chatbot might be able to help overturn it. The free service, called DoNotPay, has successfully challenged 160,000 parking tickets--around 4 million worth--in London and New York. It was launched just 21 months ago by London-born Stanford University student Joshua Browder, who says it took him three months to program and who describes DoNotPay as "the world's first robot lawyer." "As far as I know, it's the first of it's kind," Browder told Quartz.

The World Economic Forum has put together a list of the top 10 emerging technologies that will change our lives. The list includes nanosensors that will circulate through the human body, a battery that will be able to power an entire town and socially aware artificial intelligence that will track our finances and health. These are not far-flung visions, according to the forum. They are technologies that are on the cusp of having a meaningful impact. "Horizon scanning for emerging technologies is crucial to staying abreast of developments that can radically transform our world, enabling timely expert analysis in preparation for these disruptors," said Bernard Meyerson, chairman of the World Economic Forum council that compiled the list of the top 10 emerging technologies in 2016.

Have you thought about how artificial intelligence (i.e. I hope so, as the rise of artificial intelligence is undeniable in the digital marketing world. In just the past few years, artificial intelligence has already started to make us think about what can and should be delegated to automation controlled by AI. In this article I will explain how online marketing with artificial intelligence will allow you to drive better results through more quantified and automated strategies. More companies than ever -- from Google and Facebook to your aunt's crafting business -- are turning to AI to improve their business and marketing tactics and I hope to help you do so as well. A few years ago, everyone was talking about the rise of big data. Businesses would soon have more information about the industry, their customers, and even employee performance than ever before.

While Google was building an artificial intelligence that could beat a grandmaster at the ancient game of Go, researchers at the University of Cincinnati took a different tack. They designed an AI that could take on a fighter pilot. Dubbed ALPHA, this system recently beat retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee in multiple flight simulator trials, as the researchers explain in a paper recently published in the Journal of Defense Management. The idea isn't to replace human fighter pilots. According to Nicholas Ernest, a University of Cincinnati alum and the founder of Psibernetix, a company that aims to commercialize the technology behind ALPHA, this AI may ultimately act as a kind of digital assistant that provides real-time advice to pilots.

Your business is unsustainable in its present form. It doesn't matter what you make, or sell, or offer. If you continue to embrace "business as usual," you are doomed. That was the bottom-line message offered by Alexander Osterwalder, co-author of Business Model Generator, in his Day Two keynote at the Front End of Innovation conference in Boston this week. As I learned in my days at Forrester Research, whether you are writing a research report or giving a speech, there's nothing like starting off with a little fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) to get people's attention.

Artificial intelligence has been a popular topic for decades. "2001: A Space Odyssey" came out in 1968, and introduced the world to HAL 9000, a smart computer that ended up being homicidal. Evil artificial intelligence is mostly a product of science fiction so far, but as technology advances, it is starting to seem more and more plausible. Siri is just a harmless assistant, and Poncho is a cute little weather cat, but soon we could have highways full of driverless cars and skies full of autonomous drones that we wouldn't want to go rogue. This has led several tech CEOs to speak openly about the potential negative effects of AI, and many of them have started research and education projects aimed at making AI as useful and human-friendly as possible.

KPMG plans to use IBM's Watson cognitive computing technology for its professional services in Australia. The artificial intelligence deal with IBM includes a focus on audit and assurance services. IBM's Watson has been doing everything from diagnosing cancer and recommending treatment to analysing the Harry Potter books and running online university courses. "Already, data and analytics techniques are transforming audit by allowing analysis of much bigger populations of data than traditional sampling from which to draw conclusions," says Duncan McLennan, KPMG's national managing partner of audit. "Cognitive technology will allow us to build on these data and analytics advances. They will be a game changer in how the value of audit is perceived by the marketplace."

Whether it's Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov at chess, Watson defeating Ken Jennings at Jeopardy!, or Google DeepMind's AlphaGO besting Lee Sedo at Go, artificial intelligence can't be underestimated when it comes to taking on the champions and winning. That's because a new AI system called ALPHA -- developed by recent University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate Nick Ernest, now CEO of Psibernetix -- recently defeated retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee in an air combat simulator. Not only did Colonel Lee, who has extensive aerial combat experience as an instructor, fail to kill ALPHA's aircraft during combat, he was also repeatedly shot out of the air by the bot. According to Lee, ALPHA is "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible AI I've seen to date." "ALPHA is an incredibly difficult opponent to face," Psibernetix CEO Nick Ernest tells Digital Trends. "Even flying against other pilots when ALPHA has severe handicaps to a number of its systems -- including speed, turning, missile capability and sensors -- it is able to win.