Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, young directors who go by the joint film credit Daniels, are known for reality-warped miniatures--short films, music videos, commercials--that are eerie yet playful in mood. In their work, people jump into other people's bodies, Teddy bears dance to hard-core dubstep, rednecks shoot clothes from rifles onto fleeing nudists. Last year, their first feature-length project, "Swiss Army Man"--starring Daniel Radcliffe, who plays a flatulent talking corpse that befriends a castaway--premièred at Sundance, and left some viewers wondering if it was the strangest thing ever to be screened at the festival. The Times, deciding that the film was impossible to categorize, called it "weird and wonderful, disgusting and demented." Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that when the Daniels were notified by their production company, several years ago, that an Israeli indie pop star living in New York wanted to hire them to experiment with technology that could alter fundamental assumptions of moviemaking, they took the call. The musician was Yoni Bloch, arguably the first Internet sensation on Israel's music scene--a wispy, bespectacled songwriter from the Negev whose wry, angst-laden music went viral in the early aughts, leading to sold-out venues and a record deal. After breaking up with his girlfriend, in 2007, Bloch had hoped to win her back by thinking big. He made a melancholy concept album about their relationship, along with a companion film in the mode of "The Wall"--only to fall in love with the actress who played his ex. He had also thought up a more ambitious idea: an interactive song that listeners could shape as it played. But by the time he got around to writing it his hurt feelings had given way to more indeterminate sentiments, and the idea grew to become an interactive music video. The result, "I Can't Be Sad Anymore," which he and his band released online in 2010, opens with Bloch at a party in a Tel Aviv apartment. Standing on a balcony, he puts on headphones, then wanders among his friends, singing about his readiness to escape melancholy. He passes the headphones to others; whoever wears them sings, too. Viewers decide, by clicking on onscreen prompts, how the headphones are passed--altering, in real time, the song's vocals, orchestration, and emotional tone, while also following different micro-dramas. If you choose the drunk, the camera follows her as she races into the bathroom, to Bloch's words "I want to drink less / but be more drunk." Choose her friend instead, and the video leads to sports fans downing shots, with the lyrics "I want to work less / but for a greater cause."

"I had the worst dream," said Professor Einstein. "My vast intellect had been downloaded into a prosthetic body. I was then made to present the world of science to perfect strangers." Within moments of being activated, the 14-inch robotic replica of Albert Einstein made a meta comment about being trapped in a knowledge-dispensing machine. It shook its head from side to side and slowly blinked its eyes as if it were contemplating his situation.

Slack and similar workplace chat software may have changed how we communicate with our coworkers, but they haven't necessarily cut down on how often we communicate with them. Now, the San Francisco-based Slack believes the next big improvement in office communication will be software that helps workers stay on top of important messages. "It's actually quite time consuming sometimes to keep up with Slack," says Noah Weiss, who heads Slack's Search, Learning, and Intelligence department. Broadly speaking, Weiss and his team are working on making their software better at surfacing important conversations and information, similar to the way Netflix surfaces movie recommendations based on users' viewing habits. On a practical level, Slack hopes to cut down the amount of time it takes to catch up on a day's worth of Slack messages from more than an hour to 10 minutes, Weiss says.

I read a book today, oh boy. Actually, I read a lot of books--not quite one per day, but close to one each week in 2016. When browsing the Internet, I am continually bombarded with stories about politics that cause me to wonder what is happening in the world. I have such a love for progress, but civility, globalization and acceptance of others were seemingly going backward in 2016. As I look through the list of books that I read during the past year, apparently I was immersing myself in books about how changes in technology and social connections can propel the world in the direction I would like to see it take.

Last week's World Economic Forum in snowy Davos, Switzerland, brought a blizzard of proclamations about the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence, along with an avalanche of debate over its job-killing potential. The good news for us humans is that the current generation of AI technologies being used to automate data collection and processing -- such as machine-learning software that amasses more expertise as it analyzes data or neural networks modeled after the human brain -- are more likely to augment the human workforce rather than replace it. Indeed, almost two-thirds of the business executives responding to a survey released last week by IT consulting firm Infosys (PDF) said they believed AI would "bring out the best in their organization's people." The rise of AI, the Infosys poll respondents suggest, will place a premium on skills such as creativity and logical reasoning. Noted IBM chairwoman and CEO Ginni Rometty, in remarks Wednesday at Davos, said: "History has taught us many things. When you [have] powerful technologies, you have a responsibility that they're introduced in the right way." "This pivotal investment will empower our team to accelerate R&D and enhance our proprietary technology with the latest innovations in machine learning and natural language processing while broadening our expertise in CSR analysis to foster environmental, social and ethical performance at a global scale," said EcoVadis co-CEO Frederic Trinel, in a statement.

The market for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is flourishing. Beyond the hype and the heightened media attention, the numerous startups and the internet giants racing to acquire them, there is a significant increase in investment and adoption by enterprises. A Narrative Science survey found last year that 38% of enterprises are already using AI, growing to 62% by 2018. Forrester Research predicted a greater than 300% increase in investment in artificial intelligence in 2017 compared with 2016. IDC estimated that the AI market will grow from $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020.

LONDON -- The government is putting cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G wireless internet, "smart" energy technology, and robotics at the heart of its new post-Brexit industrial strategy. Theresa May is set to launch the government's "Modern Industrial Strategy" on Monday at a regional meeting of the cabinet in the North West. The Prime Minister announced in a release on Sunday evening that the strategy would be focused around ten key strategic pillars, the first of which is: "Investing in science, research, and innovation." The government says that a £4.7 billion increase in research & development (R&D) funding announced in last year's Autumn Statement is central to the new industrial strategy. This investment will go to areas such as AI, "smart" energy technology, robotics, and 5G wireless, the only specific industries name-checked in the release.

Artificial intelligence is affecting everything from automobiles to health care to home automation and even sports. It's also going to have a measurable impact on software development, with developers becoming more like data scientists, an AI official with Nvidia believes. AI and deep learning will mean changes in how software is written, said Jim McHugh, vice president and general manager for Nvidia's DGX-1 supercomputer, which is used in deep learning and accelerated analytics. The long-standing paradigm of developers spending months simply writing features will change, he explained. With the advent of AI, data is incorporated to create the insight for software.

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Don't have the budget 23% Don't own or have access to the required data 8% Once enterprises overcome these obstacles, Forrester concludes, they stand to gain from AI driving accelerated transformation in customer-facing applications and developing an interconnected web of enterprise intelligence.