Google self-driving car finally causes an accident -- a lesson in AI. According to The Verge, Google had recently performed a software update that changed the behavior to be more human like. "So several weeks ago we began giving the self-driving car the capabilities it needs to do what human drivers do: hug the rightmost side of the lane." The truth is that one of the complaints about self-driving cars is that they are too cautious so Google adapted the software so the car would move to the far right of the lane so two cars could fit in the single wide lane. This is what a regular, old fashioned, human being does so cars can move more fluidly though the heavily congested streets of California.

This idea of building generalizable models is the motivation behind splitting your dataset into a training set (on which models can be trained) and a test set (which is held out until the very end of your analysis, and provides an accurate measure of model performance).

In San Francisco this week at Pier 48, overlooking the Giants' AT&T Ballpark, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) executives are holding a user conference to introduce products and services they hope will help make the case for choosing Google in the cloud. Sam Charrington, a cloud and big data analyst and advisor, summed up Google executives' pitch best this week on Twitter: "GCP exec team's operating thesis: 'Cloud's not done. MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Is Google pushing the cloud envelope too far? Google is seen by many as being behind Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and even IBM in the IaaS cloud market. In a new research note, Deutsche Bank investment analysts predicted that GCP is on a 400 million revenue run rate, which is roughly 20 times less than AWS's. But as cloud watcher Charrington notes: "Google came from behind to win in search, mail, maps, browser, mobile based on strength of tech/product.

Sometimes a chance mention in an otherwise plain-vanilla technology article can open your eyes to something foundational going on in our economy. Today, I had that experience when reading about a new startup, Textio, raising 8 million to build out its text analysis solution. At present the technology is focused on the language used in human resources, to help improve job descriptions, for example. The firm is applying artificial intelligence (AI) to'understand' what goes on in job descriptions, and to guide those writing the descriptions to better achieve the company's hiring goals. In the example above, the phrase is geared to attracting higher-quality female candidates, based on the qualities we associate with'love' and'passion for learning'. The company is planning to expand the targets of the Textio AI to other domains, and it's HR tool is in use by leading tech firms already.

Tay was programmed by Microsoft to speak and react to Twitter users as if she were a teenage girl. This chatbot was designed to learn from human conversation so that she would become smarter over time, but she was not fed content and keyword filters or background knowledge. She naively repeated back what she learned. It was as if Tay were born yesterday. Racists and trolls quickly fed Trump-supporting, Bush-hating and genocide-promoting material to Tay through Twitter.

China's leading Internet search company, Baidu, says that data collected from its customers could be used to predict and preëmpt potentially deadly crowd gatherings in the real world. Baidu has an incredible amount of data to mine. Out of a total population of 1.35 billion in China, more than 657 million people use its services. The Baidu research also highlights how the digital trails left by Internet users can be used to understand city dynamics. Baidu's data is already being used in China to show city planners where to place transportation, facilities, or shops. However, some experts worry that such data mining might also help the government keep an eye out for social unrest.

NEW YORK, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Today at 9:00 am EST, exClone Inc. announced the release of the Debate Guide Version 2.0 as a tool offered by the Wall Street Journal to its audience following the 2016 presidential elections. The Debate Guide brings direct quotes from what was discussed by the presidential candidates during the primetime debates, and the system is updated after each new debate. The tool allows users to compare the candidates for each issue discussed and brings quotes to particular questions through a dialogue, chatbot interface. Debate Guide 2.0 offers enhanced features that build on the success of the earlier beta versions. The Debate Guide's dialogue flow is a prime example to how advanced chatbots can handle content, knowledge, and expertise.

We've hardly made peace with the idea of driverless cars, and now we're being told that artificial intelligence (AI) could also control rifles, missiles and bombs of the future. The warning was issued last summer by leading figures such as Tesla chief Elon Musk, physicist Stephen Hawking and MIT professor Noam Chomsky. "Starting a military AI arms race is a bad idea, and should be prevented by a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control," it read. The letter had the merit of publicising a debate that has been agitating diplomats, the defence industry and NGOs for several years, but without any major impact until now. Given the recent progress of robotics and artificial intelligence, their use in the world of weapons is not a matter of "Terminator"-like science fiction anymore.

Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly and poised to change the status quo in any number of industries, including healthcare. A recent report by Frost & Sullivan predicts the AI market in healthcare will reach 6 billion by 2021, up from just 600 million two years ago. With the shift to a value-based reimbursement model, ushered in with the Affordable Care Act, hospitals and providers are looking for new ways to increase efficiencies and improve patient outcomes. Cognitive solutions such as IBM's Watson system can assess huge amounts of patient data, provide guidance and decision support, and improve clinical workflow. The goal is to support the physician, not replace him or her, said Anil Jain, vice president of IBM's Watson Health and an internist and medical informatics specialist at the Cleveland Clinic.