This week, OpenAI published an analysis that documents an explosion in compute power over the past six years, which is driving advances in artificial intelligence. Compute power used in the largest AI training runs, the piece found, has doubled every 3.5 months since 2012. The breakdown of compute power necessary to create well-known AI systems like ResNets and AlphaGo Zero provides some of the clearest metrics available to demonstrate why AI is growing faster and proliferating to all corners of society. Together with big data and improvements to algorithms, this boom in compute is carving paths to the future for both businesses and the rest of the world. This week, the international community met in Geneva for the AI for Good Global Summit to discuss how AI can be used to make progress toward the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals like zero hunger, no poverty, and good health.

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. After spending more than 40 hours researching and two months testing 12 monitored home security systems, we found SimpliSafe to be the best self-installed option for most people. SimpliSafe gives you the benefits of a 24/7-monitored security system without locking you into a long-term contract, and it's affordable, reliable, and easy to install and use. SimpliSafe also offers the most comprehensive choice of systems for homes and budgets of all sizes. The current incarnation of SimpliSafe sports a stylish design that can go almost anywhere, and offers add-ons like video cameras, smoke alarms, and additional sensors to cover your entire home, large or small. SimpliSafe also has the lowest price we've found for live monitoring--low enough that it could be mostly covered by the discount you receive from your homeowners insurance for having a security system. If you want to integrate security into a smart-home setup, the Abode system includes support for Z-Wave and Zigbee, as well as Nest, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and IFTTT, though not Apple's HomeKit.

Only 22% without a strategy said the same. This means having solid prediction capabilities with your AI will be the key to keeping your customers. This means having solid prediction capabilities with your AI will be the key to keeping your customers. By the 2030s, they predict that around 38% of all U.S. jobs could be replaced by AI and automation. These top three responses, which total 75% of all AI applications, demonstrate that AI is more pervasive and prominent than respondents realize.

Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant are all female. The topic has been much discussed and researched in recent years, with data offering as one explanation for the phenomenon that both men and women prefer the sound of female voices. "They're warmer and more relatable, and make people receptive to voice-activated technology," Fast Company explained in March. Many virtual assistant users (and critics) weren't satisfied--why is that we're so OK bossing around a female voice and not a male one? Writing for the Atlantic in 2016, Adrienne LaFrance said, "The simplest explanation is that people are conditioned to expect women, not men, to be in administrative roles--and that the makers of digital assistants are influenced by these social expectations."

The ability to make hands-free phone calls through Google Home can be a great convenience once you get used to doing it. However, hands-free calling was limited because you couldn't communicate with automated systems that ask you to speak or press a number to choose a menu option. Android Police reports that this limitation has been overcome. The change is undocumented and Google's help page says it hasn't been implemented yet, but I tested it and it works. When you're in a menu system, say "Hey Google, press [number]".

The healthcare industry has been around for millennia. Although much has changed in the way it currently functions, it needs to transform into something better to serve the sick. To put it in simpler terms, the healthcare industry needs a new nervous system to function efficiently. This is where artificial intelligence comes into the picture. In healthcare, artificial intelligence has seen a consistent rise in adoption.

The message of many things in America is "Like this or die." The camera is a small, white, curvilinear monolith on a pedestal. Inside its smooth casing are a microphone, a speaker, and an eye-like lens. After I set it up on a shelf, it tells me to look straight at it and to be sure to smile! The light blinks and then the camera flashes. A head-to-toe picture appears on my phone of a view I'm only used to seeing in large mirrors: me, standing awkwardly in my apartment, wearing a very average weekday outfit. The background is blurred like evidence from a crime scene. It is not a flattering image. Amazon's Echo Look, currently available by invitation only but also on eBay, allows you to take hands-free selfies and evaluate your fashion choices. "Now Alexa helps you look your best," the product description promises. Stand in front of the camera, take photos of two different outfits with the Echo Look, and then select the best ones on your phone's Echo Look app. Within about a minute, Alexa will tell you which set of clothes looks better, processed by style-analyzing algorithms and some assistance from humans.

Samsung has been teasing its upgraded Bixby 2.0 assistant for several months now, but when is it actually going to show up in something you can buy? The company's AI research center head Gray G. Lee told the Korea Herald that the new AI helper will arrive with the upcoming flagship phone in the second half of 2018 -- in other words, the next Galaxy Note. While Lee didn't show all of Samsung's cards, he promised better natural language processing, faster responses and better results in noisy environments. As outlined last October, Bixby 2.0 should make use of Samsung's Viv acquisition to both encourage more conversational commands as well as deep linking, multiple users and more. It's not certain if everything mentioned at Bixby 2.0's unveiling will make the cut.

As seen with the offerings from mega tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon.com, Facebook and Google, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is rapidly becoming mainstream. Yet much of the technologies have been for consumer applications. Well, things often do not move as fast. However, there are some enterprise software companies that have been well ahead of the curve.

After repeatedly failing to gain traction in the music streaming space, Google's latest attempt is finally here. YouTube Music, first reported last month, is set to launch Tuesday and replace Google Play Music as the company's music subscription service. Some of its features might look awfully familiar to users of Spotify or Apple Music. YouTube Music, for example, borrows its pricing model from Spotify with a free tier to attract new potential subscribers to the platform and a $9.99 per month paid tier that offers ad-free listening, music downloads, and the ability to play music in the background on your mobile device. While both Spotify and Apple Music aim to intelligently learn from your listening habits to recommend songs you'll also like, Google takes this a step further.