Computing jobs are growing at twice the national rate of other types of employment. By 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, the US will have 1 million more computer science-related jobs than graduates qualified to fill them. In December, President Obama announced the Computer Science for All Initiative, pledging 4 billion in funding for computer science education in the nation's schools. Yet all kinds of dysfunction keeps the country from closing the deficit in computer science talent, according to a survey by Google and Gallup. Yes, school budgets are a problem, and teachers have a limited time to devote to additional classes.

Finding evidence that someone compromised your cyber defenses is a grind. Sifting through all of the data to find abnormalities takes a lot of time and effort, and analysts can only work so many hours a day. But an AI never gets tired, and can work with humans to deliver far better results. A system called AI2, developed at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, reviews data from tens of millions of log lines each day and pinpoints anything suspicious. A human takes it from there, checking for signs of a breach.

While the term may not be immediately recognizable, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are already part of our daily lives--and they are expected to become even more significant in the near future. Convolutional neural networks are a form of machine learning modeled on the way the brain's visual cortex distinguishes one object from another. That helps explain why the most common use today is for image recognition, which is where this market is gaining real traction today. But it also has many potential uses far beyond image recognition as power is reduced and performance is improved. "The work that happens at a place like Facebook or Yahoo or Google to try to find you in all those pictures people are uploading, that's largely done with neural networks already," observed Drew Wingard, CTO of Sonics, noting that driver assistance uses similar technology.

Games are uniquely human, or so we thought – Chess, Jeopardy, and now Go. Will robots take our jobs? Has web search made us dumb? We heard most of these same fears back in the 1990's, when IBM's Deep Blue defeated Grandmaster Garry Kasparov at the chessboard. But defeat is a better teacher than victory and this was certainly the case for Kasparov who has now developed a system called Centaur Chess where a human and computer play as a team with the human choosing from moves suggested by the computer.

Unmanned systems in military applications will often play a role in determining the success or failure of combat missions and thus in determining who lives and dies in times of war. Designers of UMS must therefore consider ethical, as well as operational, requirements and limits when developing UMS. The ethical issues involved in UMS design may be grouped under two broad headings: Building Safe Systems and Designing for the Law of Armed Conflict. This paper identifies and discusses a number of issues under each of these headings and offers some analysis of the implications of each issue and how it might be addressed.

Mobify, a startup which aims to help retailers attract and retain customers both online and in the brick-and-mortar world, has bought Pathful, a small artificial intelligence (AI) specialist. Both companies are based in Vancouver, British Columbia–so there's a geographic fit–but aside from that, Pathful will bring more machine learning or …

A silver BMW 5 Series is weaving through traffic at roughly 120 kilometers per hour (75 mph) on a freeway that cuts northeast through Bavaria between Munich and Ingolstadt. I'm in the driver's seat, watching cars and trucks pass by, but I haven't touched the steering wheel, the brake, or the gas pedal for at least 10 minutes. The BMW approaches a truck that is moving slowly. To maintain our speed, the car activates its turn signal and begins steering to the left, toward the passing lane. Just as it does, another car swerves into the passing lane from several cars behind. The BMW quickly switches off its signal and pulls back to the center of the lane, waiting for the speeding car to pass before trying again.

Humans have always had a complicated relationship with new "technologies." From awe to fear, centuries ago, Plato even worried that writing would adversely affect people's memories. Modernity has had a particular curiosity regarding artificial intelligence (AI). From Terminator-style killer robots to emotive humanoids, the mention of AI brings to mind the many silver screen renderings of some future civilization. More likely than any of these, however, is the reality that AI will probably turn out to be another commonplace technology that, while novel at first, will end up integrated into our everyday lives.

An artificial intelligence "chatbot" from Taco Bell now lets you order a meal in a smartphone text exchange that might look something like this: TacoBot: Hello there, I'm your TacoBot, I can help you order a meal for you or your team. TacoBot: Sounds good... do you want to keep adding stuff? Brands like Taco Bell and tech companies large and small are betting that more and more people will start using this "conversational" way of interacting online instead of clicking through on-screen menus. If the trend catches on -- as firms like Facebook and Microsoft expect -- it could transform the digital landscape by allowing smartphone users to find information or make purchases with simple text messages, bypassing apps and search engines. Among the companies already developing or launching chatbots are the Wall Street Journal, CNN and retail giants Sephora and H&M.

A glimpse into what might be possible with Artificial Intelligence by the power of Facebook. Artificial Intelligence is THE buzzword since the beginning of the year. It really leaped into the public consciousness a few weeks ago when an AI named AlphaGo created by Google's DeepMind beat Lee Se-dol in a set of the game Go. Something which until then seemed to be unachievable due to nature of the game. It sent ripples through mainstream media and now we all hyped up and ready to jump on the AI train to a better world.