Victor Allis in his article, 'One small step for computers, one giant step for AI', posed the question that becomes the subject of my enquiry. But I am also indebted to Roger Penrose and his seminal book, "The Emperor's new mind", which had influenced me in my life in more than one way. First of all on 21st April, we heard from Sundar Pichai, the Google CEO in his earnings call, the progress made by AlphaGo, "DeepMind's AlphaGo has been making great strides. It was a privilege to play legendary Go player, Lee Sedol, in such an important milestone for artificial intelligence", something that Victor's article was dedicated to. Indeed Penrose mentioned about the Oriental game Go in his book way back in 1989, while discussing about the strides made in the game of chess by computers.

AI technologies such as machine learning will play a key role in shaping the future, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the company's annual Founders' Letter to stockholders on Thursday. "It's what has allowed us to build products that get better over time, making them increasingly useful and helpful," wrote Pichai, who cited examples such as voice search, translation tools, image recognition and spam filters.

In particular, by providing a global information public good and drawing attention, year after year, to long-run determinants of growth and shared prosperity, these reports have a particularly positive influence on developing countries. If it weren't for them, it is unlikely that these issues would be on the public agenda. New sources of data and ways of learning from this data, such as big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence or satellite data, can certainly enrich these exercises. However, they cannot be substitutes but only complements. We definitely need the lense of theory, and the continued incorporation of new knowledge, to keep the indeces and benchmarking current and useful.

Intelligent technology is having a significant impact on the way customers interact with the public sector. In this article the experts at Agilisys offer an opinion on the shape of citizen interactions to come. In its recent report, The Future of Jobs, the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggested that automation, software and robots are not just changing skills requirements but replacing certain jobs altogether. While this may be worrying for those with manual, repetitive or labour-intensive jobs, it's important to focus on the 2.1 million new jobs that will be created in more specialised areas. Too often shrouded in mystery and fear, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and intelligent automation could actually revitalise innovation and revolutionise working practices.

If you're afraid of spiders, then you might find Siemens's vision for future manufacturing lines a bit alarming. In a lab in Princeton, New Jersey, the company's researchers are testing spider-like robots that extrude not silk but plastic, thanks to portable 3-D printers. The robots can work together autonomously to create simple objects. The work is at an early stage, but it hints at where manufacturing may be headed, thanks to more sophisticated robot hardware, smarter control software, and new ways of forming components using 3-D printing. Unlike a conventional robotic production line, which has to be carefully reconfigured for each new product, a team of mobile manufacturing bots would simply be given the latest design and left to go to work. Livio Dalloro, head of product design, modeling, and simulation at Siemens, says that the robots (which, unlike actual spiders, have only six legs) can currently produce only very simple objects, like cubes, but the idea is that they would eventually clamber around a larger, more complex object, building it as they go.

Meet OceanOne, a robot avatar that lets humans explore deep under the Ocean's surface, without any of the dangers or time limits associated with diving. While a human diver is constrained by pesky things like air and pressure when doing underwater research or excavations, a robot can stay underwater for much longer, collecting samples in hostile underwater environments. OceanOne was tested at the archeological site of the shipwreck La Lune off the coast of France. La Lune, a flagship that sank in the Mediterranean in 1664. It lies under 300 feet of water, far beyond the reach of recreational SCUBA divers, who limit themselves to 130 feet.

More than two months after Google removed paid ads from the right side of its search engine result page (SERP), Adobe has some encouraging news. Overall, the change seems to generated a positive impact for most advertisers and consumers. It will also (not surprisingly) likely result in a slight increase to Google's revenue, Adobe found. "We didn't find a change in terms of click value," said Sid Shah, who heads up web analytics and digital strategy and insights at Adobe. "Because there are now fewer ad positions, there is less clutter and consumers are clicking on ads with a higher propensity. They are more prone to click."

The company said that the platform, that brings machine learning together with'deep knowledge of an organisation', will enable businesses to continuously reinvent their system landscapes and lower maintenance cost of assets. Coupled with Aikido service offerings, Mana will help clients capture knowledge while delivering new and delightful experiences to their end users, it said. "Over the last 35 years, Infosys has maintained, operated and managed systems with global clients across every industry. Building on this deep experience, Infosys has recognised the need to bring artificial intelligence to the enterprise in a meaningful and purposeful way," Infosys CEO and Managing Director Vishal Sikka said at Infosys Confluence 2016. Mana leverages the power of automation for repetitive tasks and lower cost of maintenance, freeing people to focus on the higher value work and on breakthrough innovation, he added.

Irish chip maker Movidius has created the world's first deep learning USB stick that can add artificial intelligence (AI) to future products from self-driving cars to robots, and drones that will learn to think for themselves. Entitled the Fathom Neural Compute Stick, the device will sell for less than 100 and will allow powerful neural networks to be moved out of the cloud and deployed on new products like robots and drones. It is the latest breakthrough for the Dublin company, which has been winning major multi-million dollar deals with Google and drone maker DJI. 'With Fathom, every robot, big and small, can now have state-of-the-art vision capabilities' – DR YANN LECUN, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY "Any organisation can now add deep learning or machine intelligence to devices using the USB stick and create products that will be accessible to broader markets," Movidius co-founder David Moloney told Siliconrepublic.com. "We've already seen how the auto industry has been outflanked by Tesla ...

I receive flight options with times and prices curated from my previous travel behavior. No phone, email or search bar necessary; I'm using the text-based service Operator, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that pairs customers with a personal concierge to help with tracking down hard-to-find products. "I need an affordable flight from New York to San Francisco anytime next week," I tell the Operator. "Would you like a direct flight that leaves in the AM from JFK and an aisle seat?" the Operator responds. Either AM or PM is fine."