Google is turning to artificial intelligence to make sure people keep using its search engine, even if they're not spending as much time on the Web and personal computers. The Alphabet division unveiled a new mobile messaging application on Wednesday called Allo containing - a digital personal assistant, based on AI technology that powers other Google services like Inbox. At its I/O developer conference near its Silicon Valley headquarters, the company also showed off a voice-based search device called Google Home that uses the same assistant technology to answer questions when people are in their houses, a potentially potent rival to Amazon.com's Chief executive Sundar Pichai said the goal was to develop an "ongoing two-way dialogue with Google" and build billions of people their own "individual Google." The CEO sees the Google digital assistant as an "ambient experience that extends across devices."

The world of artificial intelligence (AI) is making rapid strides in technological development, from Google's AI program defeating a human in the game of Go, Russian scientists building the'Terminator' and another project from Google's Brain Team, where the AI program attempts to write post-modern poetry. The AI market is projected to expand to USD 5.05 billion by 2020 (from USD 419.7 million in 2014), at a CAGR of 53.65% from 2015 to 2020, largely due to greater applications in diversified fields, enhanced productivity and increasing consumer satisfaction. Machine learning technology, a key component of the overall AI market, is estimated to gain traction over the next five years, on account of higher anticipated demand in media & advertising and finance sectors, as well as retail, healthcare, law, and oil & gas. Multinational technology giants such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, and governments of different countries across the globe are looking to boost their investment in AI. According to reports, Google has announced a new research project dubbed'Magenta' that is aimed at exploring the use of AI to produce art. The research team will initially study what kind of algorithms are used to generate music and then subsequently move to video and other visual arts.

Though research is a slow moving and rigid process, one study shows that the rate of scientific study has exploded in the last 50 years. According to the paper, humanity's scientific output now doubles every nine years. In specific areas like healthcare, the doubling rate is even faster -- as much as every 3 years currently with an expected increase to every 73 days by the early 2020s. For overwhelmed researchers navigating the growing stack of science literature -- the value isn't in having so much new information, but finding relevant insights when they need them. According to Jacobo Elosua, a co-founder of Iris AI -- a Singularity University portfolio company -- the research process is very often tedious and unfruitful.

While the rise of AI can bring many benefits to the world, such as high degrees of quality assurance and increased efficiency, it can also carry many risks if it gets into the wrong hands. A new report has warned that if terrorist organisations, corrupt governments, doomsday cults or "psychopaths trying to add their name to history books in any way possible" develop AI to cater to their motives, then it could spell disaster for humanity. A report from Roman V. Yampolskiy of the University of Louisville and independent researcher Federico Pistono highlights the threat that AI could potentially pose to us. They write in their paper published in Arxiv: "A malevolent superintelligence may attempt to abuse and torture humankind with perfect insight into our physiology to maximise amount of physical or emotional pain, perhaps combining it with a simulated model of us to make the process infinitely long."

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? Netflix announces'The Little Prince' release with beautifully moving trailer

Though research is a slow moving and rigid process, one study shows that the rate of scientific study has exploded in the last 50 years. According to the paper, humanity's scientific output now doubles every nine years. In specific areas like healthcare, the doubling rate is even faster -- as much as every 3 years currently with an expected increase to every 73 days by the early 2020s. For overwhelmed researchers navigating the growing stack of science literature -- the value isn't in having so much new information, but finding relevant insights when they need them. According to Jacobo Elosua, a co-founder of Iris AI -- a Singularity University portfolio company -- the research process is very often tedious and unfruitful.

One of the biggest challenges encountered when using big data in marketing is knowing where to start, what to explore first, and what are the most informative initial queries to pose. If data science was a dance, then we would know what to do -- follow the choreographer's lead and take our cues from them. Well, this is critical advice in dancing, and great advice for data scientists too. This should always be your first clue (…cue): What insights do you need to derive from your data? New features to provide deeper insights?

This is part of a series on machine intelligence companies. We interviewed Beagle, Mariana, Beyond Verbal, Preteckt, and Eigen Innovations. Machines don't know what it's like to have feelings. Yet for most of us, emotions are the prism through which we view our lives. What seems like a benign request when we're in a good mood can seem like nagging when we're stressed. We tolerate jokes from our loved ones that we'd never suffer from someone we can't stand.

We're delighted to announce the winner of IK Prize 2016, an annual award that celebrates digital creativity in all its forms. This year we challenged digital creatives to use a form of artificial intelligence to explore, investigate or'understand' British art in the Tate collection. Fabrica's winning idea, RECOGNITION, is an A.I. project that will uncover the hidden links between current events and art from the Tate collection. Imagine an intelligent machine searching the never-ending stream of news images on the internet, learning to analyse thousands of photographs in terms of composition, style and content. What if this image-hungry'brain' could learn to understand great artworks too?

Your.MD, a London-based Artificial intelligence (Al)-powered Personal Health Assistant, has launched a new service that enables users to find relevant and trustworthy health services and products called OneStop. Your.MD launched the beta version of its AI Personal Health Assistant in November 2015 on iOS and Android platforms, marking the world's first Personal Health Assistant to offer medical guidance through end-to-end AI, together with Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Your.MD says OneStop is the first one-stop-shop in digital health to allow people to take full control of each stage of their health issues from understanding their symptoms to finding the best treatment via a chatbot on Facebook Messenger or WeChat. The chatbot aims to achieve three things: Finding out what's wrong with you, suggesting the most likely solution and then offering both public and private services which can help. "Your.MD is truly revolutionary and can make a seismic impact on the global healthcare system by providing accessible, trustworthy and instant healthcare to everyone with a mobile phone," said Your.MD's CEO, Matteo Berlucchi, in the announcement.