I first came across a real application of Machine Learning at work. We were supposed to prepare an application that will recognize frauds in the Zooplus shop. After months of trying different solutions: external providers, additional if statements in the code, fire-fighting scripts and such, we ended up with a conclusion that Machine Learning is the best tool for the job. Since then, we were trying to convince everyone around to invest in our education and pursue the Machine Learning path, but without any spectacular successes. Yet I had a chance to make my first step by playing a bit with Amazon's Machine Learning capabilities, so I consider myself a level 2 dummy.

Welcome to the second edition of D/SRUPTION Magazine addressing the key questions around disruption, innovation and digital transformation. A big thank you to all of our expert contributors for sharing their thoughts on the technologies and business models transforming the business world. Signing In – Is the world about to finally shake off its reliance on high cost oil? Day In The Life – Accenture's Chief Analytics Officer Narendra Mulani gives a glimpse into the life of an innovator AI Versus Skill Sets – How your future depends on whether you have a'proficiency' or a'pivotal' role in your business Innovation – Europe's largest innovation ecosystem is in. . . If you are interested in writing an article for D/SRUPTION magazine or the disruptionhub.com

It's clear artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will dramatically affect the job market, but there's conflicting ideas on just how soon this will happen. Some believe it's imminent -- possibly fueled by developments like the Japanese insurance company replacing over 30 employees with robots -- but it's not that cut and dried. Many of the jobs that will be automated are the same jobs companies have been outsourcing for years: customer support, data entry, accounting, etc. Others are jobs they simply cannot fill due to decreases in headcount. Either way, as transactions and expectations for real-time output increase, businesses are struggling to meet this demand and must digitize their operations to remain competitive.

SoftBank's robot, 'Pepper', performs during a news conference in Taipei Thomson Reuters Drew Breunig works with data, technology, advertising and more. He works on business applications at @PlaceIQ and is Co-founder at @GetReporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dbreunig. As buzzwords become ubiquitous they become easier to tune out. We've finely honed this defense mechanism, for good purpose. It's better to focus on what's in front of us than the flavor of the week.

If you want your apps to understand what someone's saying or know if your user-content rules are being broken, Microsoft has you covered. Microsoft is expanding its portfolio of Cognitive Services--in-the-cloud APIs that provide out-of-the-box versions of useful algorithms--to include two new services that go into general availability next month: the Content Moderator and Bing Speech APIs. Bing Speech converts audio into text and vice versa. It's also able to apply contextual understanding to that speech or text. The Speech API's demo page lets you try a limited sample of both text-to-speech and speech-to-text for yourself.

Women in Technology, a friend of TandemNSI, is hosting its monthly event on Feb. 16 on Artificial Intelligence in McLean, VA, with speakers from MITRE, IBM, Local Motors and Northrop Grumman. AI has long fascinated us as a society, becoming central to the plots of numerous thriller movies and novels. Now AI is no longer just fiction; it is a reality, and its applications are broad reaching. AI-based technology is already allowing us to make invaluable advancements in medicine, cybersecurity, transportation, finance, and education. The potential benefits are so great, they are driving billions of dollars of investment.

Toyota is partnering with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to research artificial intelligence and robotics in order to bring greater autonomy to Toyota cars. The car maker will contribute US$50 million over five years to two research centers that are being set up at Stanford and MIT. However, don't expect a computer to completely drive your Camry any time soon. Toyota will always assume a person will be at the wheel, said Gill Pratt, who oversaw the DARPA Robotics Challenge and is now joining Toyota as an executive technical adviser. Toyota will focus on creating "human-centric systems" that are supplemented by technology, Pratt said Friday at a press conference in Palo Alto, California.

AI that learns, evolves and can transform itself is closer than you think. Would you have a relationship with an AI that could take the form of your ideal partner?

Algorithms are embedded into our technological lives, helping accomplish a variety of tasks like making sure that email makes it to your aunt or that you're matched to someone on a dating website who likes the same bands as you. Sure, such computer code aims to make our lives easier, but experts cited in a new report by Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center are worried that algorithms may also make us lose our ability to make decisions. After all, if the software can do it for us, why should we bother? "Algorithms are the new arbiters of human decision-making in almost any area we can imagine, from watching a movie (Affectiva emotion recognition) to buying a house (Zillow.com) to self-driving cars (Google)," Barry Chudakov, founder and principal at Sertain Research and StreamFuzion Corp., says in the report. But despite advances, algorithms may lead to a loss in human judgment as people become reliant on the software to think for them.

Sophos (LSE: SOPH), a global leader in network and endpoint security, today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Invincea, a visionary provider of next-generation malware protection. Invincea's endpoint security portfolio is designed to detect and prevent unknown malware and sophisticated attacks via its patented deep learning neural-network algorithms. It has been consistently ranked as among the best performing machine learning, signature-less next-generation endpoint technologies in third-party testing and rated highly both for high detection and low false-positive rates. Headquartered in Fairfax, Va., Invincea was founded by chief executive officer Anup Ghosh to address the rapidly growing zero-day security threat from nation states, cyber criminals and rogue actors. Invincea's flagship product X by Invincea uses deep learning neural networks and behavioral monitoring to detect previously unseen malware and stops attacks before damage occurs.