This article, 10 artificial intelligence insiders to follow on Twitter, originally appeared on TechRepublic.com. With the flood of news on self-driving cars, drones, caring robots, and more, it isn't always easy to keep up-to-date with the latest in the artificial intelligence universe. For the insiders' view on what's happening in AI, follow these 10 researchers, professors, institutions, and other great thinkers who offer human insight into the world of machines. Author of the recently released Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, Ford is an important voice in conversations about the future of the workplace and the debate over whether automation will replace humans in the job market. Zhang, a leading software engineer, was a recent speaker at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2015 conference.

DETROIT – Toyota is forming a new data science company in partnership with Microsoft that's designed to free customers "from the tyranny of technology." The company called Toyota Connected has a goal of simplifying technology so it's easier to use, perhaps even getting rid of distracting and complicated touch screens that now are in most cars and replacing them with heads-up or voice-activated technology, said Zack Hicks, the company's CEO, who also is Toyota Motor America's chief information officer. "I think people are really tired of fumbling with multiple devices and having this disjointed experience," Hicks said as Toyota announced the venture on Monday. Like other automakers, Toyota Connected will research connecting cars to each other and to homes, as well as telematics features that learn and anticipate a driver's habits. The company, like other automakers, will explore transmitting a driver's health data to a doctor or driving patterns to an insurance company so people are insured based on where they travel, Toyota said.

A U.S. government-backed committee has reportedly recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration loosen restrictions on the use of commercial drones, a crucial first step to wider business applications for unmanned aerial vehicles. The FAA's Aviation Rulemaking Committee of industry leaders and agency officials late Friday recommended easing restrictions that prohibit businesses from flying unmanned aerial vehicles over populated areas in some cases. FAA spokesman Les Dorr says the agency received the report on Saturday and needs time to review the recommendations. The committee's report, obtained by the Associated Press, recommends the creation of four categories of drones. Devices weighing half a pound or less would have essentially no limits on flying over crowds if the manufacturer could ensure a 99 percent chance that it would not injure someone even if it fell on them.

Last week at Microsoft's Build conference, CEO Satya Nadella said that the future of the company was "conversation as platform." In other words, less Windows and Office, and more Cortana and Tay--conversational interfaces that can understand the natural language of human users. If Nadella thought he was expressing some unique vision of the future, though, he was fooling himself. The idea of conversational UI has quickly colonized nearly every corner of Silicon Valley over the past year. Now seems like a good time to ask: What is a conversational interface?

When people imagine machine learning, they tend to think about talking cars or humanoid robots--the stuff of sci-fi fantasy, or else dystopian fiction. But machine learning is neither, and it's already changing what computers can do. In the near future anyway, it's going to transform the way we work--starting with that smartphone in your pocket. Programs that can learn how to accomplish tasks are already at play in the workplace, where they're taking on an ever greater share of our most energy-sapping, mundane chores so we humans have more time for the important stuff. That's nowhere more evident that on mobile, where our smartphones are transforming into personal assistants.

Although I pride myself as being a lover of all things tech, it doesn't mean it doesn't terrify me. A world with artificial intelligence on the rise, where technology replaces every day practices, ultimately sending us down a path where existential crises are inevitable. At the end of the day though, something I constantly remind myself is that: we're all human. Being human is something that will trump all (I just realized that the word "trump" has been permanently ruined for me). In order to truly understand any situation, it is to your advantage to first understand the human mind behind the operation. After all, that robot named Jerry, didn't create himself, a human did.

Bengaluru: Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the IT services company, said it will give a Rs.24-crore grant over the next three years to Delhi-based Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) to set up a research centre for artificial intelligence (AI). For Infosys, which carries out its Corporate Social Responsibility through the foundation, supporting educational institutions has been a fundamental part of its CSR strategy. The grant comes at a time when Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka, who has a doctorate degree in artificial intelligence from Stanford University, has been trying to increasingly build out capabilities around the strategic focal points of automation and artificial intelligence in the company. The proposed Infosys Center for Artificial Intelligence will facilitate work on both fundamental and applied aspects of AI and focus on areas such as robotics, machine learning, computer vision, AI for software systems, large-scale data analytics. The research will draw on real-time data to develop a deeper understanding of AI for social benefits, and the application of AI in education and related areas, said the release.

Bengaluru-based Bazmi Husain heads the research & development (R&D) vertical of Swiss engineering major ABB that spends 1.5 billion annually on R&D. Bazmi took charge as the chief technology officer of the group in January 2016 after being the managing director of ABB India. Bazmi, who also heads the venture capital arm of the group, talks to Jyoti Mukul about the global technology trends and how India is uniquely placed. Edited excerpts: How important is ABB's India centre in its R&D operations? India is the largest and fastest growing R&D location for ABB, with footprints across Bengaluru, Chennai, Vadodara and Nashik.

What is AI and what is not AI is, to some extent, a matter of definition. There is no denying that AlphaGo, the Go-playing artificial intelligence designed by Google Deep Mind that recently beat world champion Lee Sedol, and similar deep learning approaches have managed to solve quite hard computational problems in recent years. But is it going to get us to full AI, in the sense of an artificial general intelligence, or AGI, machine? Not quite, and here is why. One of the key issues when building an AGI is that it will have to make sense of the world for itself, to develop its own, internal meaning for everything it will encounter, hear, say, and do.

Advances in both theory and practice are throwing the promise of machine learning into sharp relief. The field has the potential to transform a range of industries, from self-driving cars to intelligent business applications. Yet machine learning is so complex and wide-ranging that even its definition can change from one person to the next. The series of interviews in this exclusive report unpack concepts and innovations that represent the frontiers of ever-smarter machines. You'll get a rare glimpse into this exciting field through the eyes of some of its leading minds. About the editor: David Beyer is an investor with Amplify Partners, an early-stage VC focused on the next generation of infrastructure IT, data, and information security companies.