In an effort to forge partnerships in a sector that will affect every industry, some of Canada's largest corporations are contributing to a $5 million fund for artificial intelligence startups. At a panel Wednesday morning to celebrate the launch of the program, called NextAI, executives from Royal Bank of Canada, Magna International Inc., Bank of Nova Scotia and the Business Development Bank of Canada laid out their vision for how artificial intelligence can transform their businesses. They're providing funding with no strings attached to the program, which will provide artificial intelligence startups with $200,000 in addition to access to technology, mentorship and education. Artificial intelligence, also known as machine learning or deep learning, is a method of training computers to learn like children by processing huge sets of data with software that mimics the neural networks in the human brain. Machine learning is already powering algorithms that allow Netflix Inc. to predict what a user will want to watch next, help doctors diagnose diseases by comparing thousands of similar medical images and help autonomous vehicles decide how to react to objects in their paths.

In billiards, you must call your shot ahead of time. You don't get any points for luck. With that in mind, here are my on-the-record predictions for 2017. Self-driving cars, previously existing only in the world of science fiction, are becoming a reality. Today taxis are driving themselves in Singapore.

All major TV makers have stopped building 3D functionality into their sets, with LG and Sony reportedly following the likes of Samsung, Sharp and Hisense by opting not to make it a feature of their latest televisions. However, lack of content, the requirement for viewers to wear 3D glasses and calibration issues meant that it never really took off as the industry had expected it to. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric ...

Distilling a generally-accepted definition of what qualifies as artificial intelligence (AI) has become a revived topic of debate in recent times. Some have rebranded AI as "cognitive computing" or "machine intelligence", while others incorrectly interchange AI with "machine learning". This is in part because AI is not one technology. It is in fact a broad field constituted of many disciplines, ranging from robotics to machine learning. The ultimate goal of AI, most of us affirm, is to build machines capable of performing tasks and cognitive functions that are otherwise only within the scope of human intelligence.

Jeremy Waite, Evangelist at IBM Watson, kicked off speaking at a recent DMA event by highlighting the fact that by 2019 there will be 1m new devices coming online every hour. With so much smart tech in the hands of consumers, will we end up marketing to machines or algorithms? He asked the audience to think about how we can use AI to create more meaningful relationships with our customers and use the power of marketing to make a difference. While it is easy to get overexcited about technology, we still have situations where 85% of enterprises are not sharing data within their own sales teams. Furthermore, the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies indicates that two of the top trends over the next five years will be cognitive expert advisors and machine learning.

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Within a decade, our living spaces will be enhanced by a host of new devices and technologies, performing a range of household functions and redefining what it means to feel at home. The promise of devices that not only meet our household needs but anticipate them as well has been around for decades. To date, that promise remains largely unfulfilled. Advances such as the Nest thermostat by Alphabet (parent company to Google) and Amazon's Alexa personal assistant are notable, but the home-technology market as a whole remains fragmented, and the potential for a truly smart home is still unrealized. A tipping point may be at hand.

Every step forward in artificial intelligence (AI) challenges assumptions about what machines can do. Myriad opportunities for economic benefit have created a stable flow of investment into AI research and development, but with the opportunities come risks to decision-making, security and governance. Increasingly intelligent systems supplanting both blue- and white-collar employees are exposing the fault lines in our economic and social systems and requiring policy-makers to look for measures that will build resilience to the impact of automation. Leading entrepreneurs and scientists are also concerned about how to engineer intelligent systems as these systems begin implicitly taking on social obligations and responsibilities, and several of them penned an Open Letter on Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence in late 2015.1 Whether or not we are comfortable with AI may already be moot: more pertinent questions might be whether we can and ought to build trust in systems that can make decisions beyond human oversight that may have irreversible consequences. By providing new information and improving decision-making through data-driven strategies, AI could potentially help to solve some of the complex global challenges of the 21st century, from climate change and resource utilization to the impact of population growth and healthcare issues.

This week, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) released the first images from its new weather satellite, GEOS-16. With more than 4,000 man-made satellites in orbit, one more might seem like a mundane news, but this particular satellite has significant implications for travel. Its presence is also a perfect example of the growing importance of connected intelligence as a technological necessity for virtually every industry. From a tech perspective, the new satellite is like upgrading from a black and white flip phone to the latest iPhone. The'Advanced Baseline Imager' - the main instrument in the new satellite - is capable of capturing at least 60 times more data per day than its predecessor, and that's not the only data the satellite is gathering.

America's largest tech companies face a growing backlash over the potentially negative impacts of their strategic decisions and innovations. For example, companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and product roadmaps that will replace millions of jobs during the coming years. Experts in marketing, technology and social awareness say it's time for technology providers to assume greater responsibility for the personal pain that comes along with the collective gain. Emerging technology is at almost perpetual odds with the status quo, but U.S. society is coming to realize that dynamic can lead to job losses, unfair treatment of social services and a stain on civic engagement. The power and influence that some tech companies command is being reevaluated in light of the myriad ways people are being disenfranchised in some way by their actions.