Big things are on the horizon. So what does it mean for the average person? We reported recently on the Insomnobot 3000, a dream come true for anyone who can't seem to get a good night's sleep. This particular Chatbot functions on an SMS level, but you know, if I'm tossing and turning, it's better than nothing. Granted this is only one form of artificial intelligence. But the success of the Insomnobot begs the question: "In the bigger scheme of things, where does this AI journey end?"

Much of the internet appears to have gone down in Turkey. People in the country are having problems accessing much of the internet's biggest websites and services, including Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter and more. The website Down Detector confirmed problems in the country, particularly in the west. Some have reported that the sites are simply slow, but that it is still possible to access them. Others say they are down entirely.

Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. While machine learning is introducing innovation and change to many sectors, it also is bringing trouble and worries to others. One of the most worrying aspects of emerging machine learning technologies is their invasiveness on user privacy. From rooting out your intimate and embarrassing secrets to imitating you, machine learning is making it hard to not only hide your identity but also keep ownership of it and prevent from being attributed to you words you haven't uttered and actions you haven't taken. Here are some of the technologies that might have been created with good-natured intent, but can also be used for evil deeds when put into the wrong hands.

A company that develops Software as a Service to help consumers navigate health insurance options is rolling out a new solution that uses machine learning and the computing capabilities of IBM Watson. Welltok is offering its Virtual Benefits Agent, developed by its Applied Cognitive Computing Practice. The company says the solution that addresses the majority of health coverage and preventative care questions before they reach a customer service representative, presenting health plans with the potential to save millions of dollars. The Virtual Benefits Agent was created by Welltok's Applied Cognitive Computing Practice, which applies proprietary technologies, IBM Watson and expertise to solve complex healthcare challenges. Recently, the team worked with a major national health plan, building on an existing framework and leveraging available content, to expedite development of the Virtual Benefits Agent capability.

The former belongs to the realm of explanatory models, the latter to the realm of predictive analytics. Explanatory models, often involving linear regression, are concerned with explaining a given phenomenon and finding causal relationships between an output (dependent) variable, and a host, often very few, input (independent) variables. The objective is to find a good regression model that fits the data very well which meets the underlying assumption of linear regression. The emphasis here is on hypothesis testing, p-values, confidence intervals,…Once a good model is found, one can use it for estimating the value of the output variable for given values of the input variables. It is OK to estimate an output value based on interpolation, but one must use extreme caution in estimating output values based on extrapolation because the regression model is an explanatory model, not a predictive one.

Artificial Intelligence is poised to disrupt the entire eCommerce industry. An interesting convergence is taking place; one that will have enormous implications in the way retailers sell their products and services and the way consumers buy them. Artificial Intelligence capabilities and applications are attempting to solve real-world issues that eCommerce industry are facing. How Artificial Intelligence in e-commerce can play an important and game changing role, moving beyond customer segmentation to help them achieve the best possible results? The visual Search engine is one of the most exciting trends of Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 3, 2016) - While many fans dreamed the Chicago Cubs would make it to the World Series, few fans or pundits actually predicted it. But UNU, the world's first Artificial Swarm Intelligence, made a bold set of baseball predictions back in early July, naming all eight teams to make the playoffs and asserting the Cubs would win their first pennant since 1945 and first World Series since 1908. For good measure, UNU also correctly picked the Cubs' opponent, the Cleveland Indians. It was way back at midseason, during the All-Star break, when the Boston Globe challenged Unanimous A.I. to use their UNU system to do something audacious -- predict the full outcome of the 2016 baseball season. Unanimous delivered a set of picks to the Globe, which they published and have been tracking ever since.

Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) has opened an Innovation Centre at Macquarie Park in Sydney's north that will focus on the development of technology solutions in areas such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual and augmented reality. Opening the centre on Friday, CSC managing director Seelan Nayagam said he expects the new centre to serve as a hub to incubate technology and act as a "prototyping sandbox" that will allow clients to experience and test the viability of their own technology solutions before committing to a large scale implementation. "It will be a showcase for the very latest technology solutions from CSC and our partners," he said. According to Nayagam, it is the people involved in the innovation labs that really make a difference, not just the technology. "This innovation centre ... is a place where we want to bring creative people. Innovation is not just about technology, it's about processes, it's about thinking differently," Nayagam said.

Artificial intelligence has become the pet anxiety of luminaries like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking. They have all expressed concerns about our Promethean quest to develop machine intelligence, and those concerns seem to be spreading every day. But there's another dimension of technological change that ought to worry us every bit as much as AI, if not more so. Bioengineering has already allowed human beings to take control of their own evolution. Whether it's emergent cloning technologies or advanced gene therapy, we're quickly approaching a world in which humans can -- and will -- change the way they live and die. Michael Bess is a historian of science at Vanderbilt University and the author of a fascinating new book, Our Grandchildren Redesigned: Life in a Bioengineered Society. Bess's book offers a sweeping look at our genetically modified future, a future as terrifying as it is promising. "We're going to give ourselves a power that we may not have the wisdom to control very well," he told me.