As if active portfolio managers didn't have enough challenges from computer-driven passive investing strategies, now machines are directly horning in on their territory. San Francisco-based EquBot LLC is launching the first ever exchange-traded fund to use artificial intelligence, according to a company statement on Tuesday. Employing International Business Machines Corp.'s Watson platform, the AI Powered Equity ETF, ticker AIEQ, will attempt to mimic an army of equity research analysts working around the clock, according to Art Amador, co-founder of EquBot. "There has been an explosion of information," Amador said by phone. "AI provides a more informed way of investing."

Since the term Internet of Things, or IoT, was coined in 1999, the industry has had its share of hype, consternation, successes, and now even twitter parody accounts (@InternetOfShit). Although large-scale advertising campaigns for the IoT have become mainstream (seen any IBM Watson, Ring, or GE Digital ads lately?), recent news that GE had throttled growth expectations for its Predix IoT platform begs the following questions. What is the current state of Industrial IoT? Where are the areas of opportunity and what will emerge as winners? As an Entrepreneur in IoT for the last decade helping to find product/market fit for companies like Greenwave Systems and August Home, I believe there are significant opportunities in the Industrial IoT segment, a less visible, but a significantly larger compliment to Consumer IoT.

A recent interview with a former IBM employee who worked in the company's life sciences group shows that the hype of artificial intelligence's impact on healthcare was felt internally too. Severak reported accounts in recent months, including the well-researched piece in Stat News, have documented how IBM Watson's foray in healthcare has been far less noteworthy than advertised. In fact, other companies in the AI space have not hesitated to call out the company for overstating its capabilities. At MedCity News' own cancer innovation conference – CONVERGE – earlier this summer in Philadelphia, Zach Weinberg, co-founder at Flatiron Health, who was a panelist along with an IBM Watson Health representative, took IBM to task as recorded by this tweet. "@IBMWatson not intellectually honest about what it is actually doing; instead using buzz wrds" @zachweinberg @flatironhealth #mcConverge Similarly, this former employee, who declined to speak on the record for fear of angering his powerful former employer, said that large marketing budgets have yielded a lot of advertising but no tangible off-the-shelf product.

A successful platform has several essential elements, according to Ruchir Puri, chief architect at IBM Watson. Puri, an IBM fellow, spoke with SearchCIO at this year's Platform Strategy Summit hosted by the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. In this video, he discusses the essential components of the IBM Watson platform, how he sees the platform evolving and what factors are contributing to its growth. Below are excerpts from the interview; click on the player to hear the interview in its entirety. How do you define platform and how do you see platforms changing in the next five years?

IBM Watson Customer Engagement 2,246 views AmerisourceBergen standardize its B2B architecture w/ IBM Watson Supply Chain & Lightwell solutions - Duration: 2:54. IBM Watson Customer Engagement 203 views Use Watson Visual Recognition to enrich video files - Duration: 7:28. Rich Hagarty 51 views Watson IoT: Visual Quality Inspection for Manufacturing Processes - Duration: 12:28.

The sixth season of the HBO program Game of Thrones begins April 24. And if you're a fan of the books on which the program is based, you're not quite sure what to expect. Author George R. R. Martin has not yet announced a release date for the sixth book in the series. Which means the television show is about to move ahead of the books, in terms of where the plot is heading. Fans of the book are preparing for spoiler alerts of epic proportions.

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In the era of Industry 4.0, the conventional barriers between sectors, businesses, and even academia will dissolve and in their place will a collaborative model will emerge. In this new environment, the advantage will go to those who know how to reinvent competitiveness and industrial imagination and find new growth fields–all while working together. As a renowned research institution and a leading tech company respectively, MIT and IBM are adopting an Industry 4.0 spirit, understanding that communication and mutual effort toward objectives and activities will be key success factors. IBM has over 1,000 researchers working to advance AI science, and as if that's not enough, the company is seeking further help at one of the world's most prestigious universities. In a press release, IBM announced its partnership with MIT in the field of AI by creating a joint research lab.

In part, the critics of AI are driven by the knowledge that'white collar jobs' are the ones that are now under threat. Business leaders are frequently confronted by notions of job-killing automation and headlines on the variation of the theme that "Robots Will Steal Our Jobs." Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Silicon Valley figurehead, and champion of technology-driven innovation even goes a step further by suggesting AI is a fundamental threat to human civilisation. In part, the critics of AI are driven by the knowledge that'white collar jobs' are the ones that are now under threat. The robot on the assembly line is now a familiar image.