Elon Musk, along with a bevy of other smart people, have expressed concern over our experiments with artificial intelligence, particularly with the weaponization of sentient AI. So have these guys been watching too much Terminator, or is there a larger existential crisis we should be worried about? Woman transforms into 5 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' characters in one minute Notorious B.I.G. hit'Juicy' just got a vintage jazz makeover Guy achieves next level of love with Super Mario Bros. proposal

Google announced in its recent I/O conference that it has developed Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), an application specific processor designed for deep learning. Google states that TPU demonstrates faster intelligence capabilities to manage AI workloads. Google proudly claims that TPUs are high-tech chips that drive forward chip-technology seven years into the future. This custom IC (Integrated Circuit) finds its application in Google's TensorFlow machine learning software. Thousands of them are being used in its own data centres for over a year now.

Advanced digital technologies are swiftly changing the kinds of skills that jobs require. How are improvements in digital technology changing the nature of human work? A team of researchers from the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Masdar Institute in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, have taken a close look at that question. In a paper called "Racing With and Against the Machine: Changes in Occupational Skill Composition in an Era of Rapid Technological Advance," Frank MacCrory, George Westerman and Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School and Yousef Alhammadi of the Masdar Institute studied the U.S. government's O*NET database of occupational skill requirements in 2006 and 2014 and analyzed the types of skills that jobs required in both years. Their paper was named the best conference paper at the 2014 International Conference on Information Systems.

"Therefore render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." We tend to think that recommender systems are old hat. ECommerce platforms like Amazon have been using techniques like collaborative filtering for years to help shoppers navigate vast catalogues by inferring consumer taste from past behavior. And yet, we've all experienced the limitations of these approaches (that time you bought a toilet bowl plunger to subsequently be flooded by recommendations for strange bathroom accessories). This may be a nuisance for consumers, but it doesn't jeopardize eCommerce business models: only 35% of Amazon's sales, for example, are driven from recommendations.

The rise of bots isn't something new: It's been happening for quite some time now, and it is pretty clear why. People want to have things automated so that every time they want to order a pizza, they wouldn't need to download the app and learn the UI. Now you just need to text or tell the bot and it does it for you. This is a much simpler and elementary exercise than the traditional way of apps and webpages. Many in the technology sector believe that chatbots -- computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users, are the next big form of communication, and they are already more common than estimated.

So what exactly is AI? Our ticket to a glorious decadent future, or are we just going to be ruled by a bunch of mad robots? Join Chuck and Naren as they explore this science which isn't as new as you might think it to be. We look at the technology, a few examples and of course - some terrible puns. But first, of course, we start with Chuck's longstanding mancrush on Elon Musk (sigh, give it up, mate).

Just mention artificial intelligence or AI and the imaginative mind conjures up images of Terminator machines taking over the world. Thankfully, today's picture is much more positive. Businesses are beginning to harness the power of AI and robotics to grow profit. Many use the technology to collaborate with their staff. Artificial intelligence, meaning the ability of computers to make judgments, suddenly appeared real in the 1990s when computers began to beat chess world champions. Its sophistication has improved dramatically and this year Google's DeepMind won the immensely complicated Go board game.

Gym-TORCS is the reinforcement learning (RL) environment in TORCS domain with OpenAI-gym-like interface. TORCS is the open-rource realistic car racing simulator recently used as RL benchmark task in several AI studies. Gym-TORCS is the python wrapper of TORCS for RL experiment with the simple interface (similar, but not fully) compatible with OpenAI-gym environments. The current implementaion is for only the single-track race in practie mode. If you want to use multiple tracks or other racing mode (quick race etc.), you may need to modify the environment, "autostart.sh" or the race configuration file using GUI of TORCS.

Deep learning based AI will drive the next phase of disruption for TMT. Leveraging hyperscale data centers and ubiquitous mobile devices, AI systems that allow computers to interpret ambiguous inputs and find optimal solutions are enhancing human-machine interfaces, enabling autonomous machines to execute complex tasks, and addressing previously intractable analytic challenges. However, the prerequisites for leadership in AI are rare. There may be as few as 50 true experts in deep learning, concentrated in a small number of organizations. Only a few hyperscale cloud operators have the computing power critical to addressing the most promising opportunities.

The first wave of robots taking over human jobs is upon us. Apple Inc. AAPL, 0.79% supplier Foxconn Technology Co. 2354, 0.14% has replaced 60,000 human workers with robots in a single factory, according to a report in the South China Morning Post, initially published over the weekend. This is part of a massive reduction in headcount across the entire Kunshan region in China's Jiangsu province, in which many Taiwanese manufacturers base their Chinese operations. In a statement to MarketWatch, Foxconn Technology Group confirmed that it has been automating its manufacturing facilities throughout China, including Kunshan, for "many years," which it says has freed up its employees to focus on higher value-added elements of the manufacturing process, such as research and development, process control and quality control. "Across all of our facilities today, we are applying robotics engineering and other innovative manufacturing technologies to replace repetitive tasks previously done by employees," Foxconn said.