Engineers at Pinterest constantly create new artificial-intelligence algorithms to help its users find what they're looking for among billions of pictures of food, products, houses, and other items. Matching search queries with relevant images is crucial to keep users coming back. But until last year, it could take days to test the effectiveness of each new algorithm. To fine-tune its machine learning and provide better search results faster, Pinterest turned to an unexpected source: human intelligence. It hired crowdsourcing companies such as CrowdFlower to marshal people to quickly do "micro-tasks" such as labeling photos and assessing the quality of search results.

What keeps software developers up at night, other than coding? The fear that artificial intelligence systems can replace them, according to a new survey. Evans Data Corp., in a survey of 550 software developers, asked them about the most worrisome thing in their careers. A plurality, 29%, chose this answer: "I and my development efforts are replaced by artificial intelligence." Surprisingly, this concern about A.I. topped the second-most identified worry, which was that the platform the developer is working on will become obsolete (23%), or doesn't catch on (14%). Concerns about A.I. replacing software developers has academic support.

This is an exciting time to be alive in the fintech space -- and also an interesting time to be a chatbot, as the experiences of Microsoft's Tay proved last week. As FIs and startups alike leverage the best in entrepreneurial and technological insight to adapt to customers' lives, the gap is narrowing between financial operations (payments, budgeting, etc) and how these interactions are integrated into the lives of users, increasingly cultivating a seamless banking experience. This seamlessness may have taken a step forward last week as German mobile banking startup Number26 introduced a new app that lays the groundwork for extensive artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services. Dubbed PULSE26, Number26's new banking app analyzes customer saving and spending habits to optimize the digital banking experience for each user. PULSE26 alerts the user with quick and comprehensive updates based on personal banking history.

The number of sophisticated cognitive technologies that might be capable of cutting into the need for human labor is expanding rapidly. But linking these offerings to an organization's business needs requires a deep understanding of their capabilities. If popular culture is an accurate gauge of what's on the public's mind, it seems everyone has suddenly awakened to the threat of smart machines. Several recent films have featured robots with scary abilities to outthink and manipulate humans. In the economics literature, too, there has been a surge of concern about the potential for soaring unemployment as software becomes increasingly capable of decision making. Yet managers we talk to don't expect to see machines displacing knowledge workers anytime soon -- they expect computing technology to augment rather than replace the work of humans.

It seems like technical skills are all anyone cares about in the neverending war for talent. But with machines eliminating more and more technical tasks, soft skills will become the big hiring differentiator. Here are the skills yet to be claimed by our technological overlords that you should develop further. Machines may have found a formula for writing novels and songs in Orwell's "1984", but so far creativity is something that they are otherwise struggling with. In The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson predicts that technology will amplify human creativity.

AI stands for artificial intelligence. It lately has become a big deal in the smart home with the advent of voice recognition devices. There is a bit of confusion, though, when it comes to what AI in the smart home really means. In this case, we can consider two different types of AI: Natural Language Processing (voice recognition) and Machine Learning. When you speak to a system such as Josh.ai,

At one of the busiest shipping terminals in the U.S., more than two dozen giant red robots wheeled cargo containers along the docks on a recent morning, handing the boxes off to another set of androids gliding along long rows of stacked containers before smoothly setting the boxes down in precise spots. The tightly designed dance at TraPac LLC's Los Angeles terminal offers a window on how global trade will move in the near future: using highly automated systems and machinery, with minimal human intervention, to handle the flood of goods that new free-trade agreements will push to the docks. Many in the industry believe automation, which boosts terminal productivity and reliability while cutting labor costs, is critical to the ability of ports to cope with the surging trade volumes and the huge megaships that are beginning to arrive in the U.S. Analysts estimate the technology can reduce the amount of time ships spend in port and improve productivity by as much as 30%. "We have to do it for productivity purposes, to stay relevant and to be able to service these large ships," said Peter Stone, a member of TraPac's board. Yet the TraPac site is one of only four cargo terminals in the U.S. using the technology.

Jeremy Howard is the founder and chief executive of Enlitic, a startup in San Francisco. Five years after a computer won "Jeopardy," excitement over artificial intelligence is at a peak, but its commercial potential will take some years to be realized. Howard believes that AI can transform the huge industry of health care, saving lives and money. "But that's a 25-year project," he said.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 appears to be a much-needed success for the Korean tech giant, and according to estimates, shipments of the said flagship will exceed the company's expectations for the first quarter of 2016, reaching 9 million units up from Samsung's earlier 5.5 million prediction. However, while Samsung appears to have stabilized its smartphone business, market analysts predict that by the end of Q1 2016, the company will register lower operating profits year-on-year in a number of niches, including its semiconductor and consumer electronics sectors. Amid this decline, fresh reports suggest that Samsung intends to expand its product portfolio and focus on new business ventures, including virtual reality, automotive, and artificial intelligence. According to DRAM eXchange research, global LCD TV shipments will show zero increase in 2016 compared to last year. In addition, laptop, PC, and tablet shipments are estimated to decline by 3%, 4%, and 7% respectively, and, in turn, this could mean that Samsung's operating profits for Q1 2016 might decline by 13% in the semiconductor business, and by 63% in the consumer electronics department. Interestingly enough, while Samsung Electronics is expected to register lower operating profits in Q1 2016, the South Korean company is apparently planning to increase its market presence in other segments, including the automotive market and the virtual reality niche.

Once upon a time, there was a little black mouse. When he was nine months old, he died. After that, some men and women scooped out his tiny brain and sliced it into slices thinner than a whisker. Over the next few years, the men and women looked at all the slices very, very closely. Some of the parts, they realized, connected to other parts.