Yes, there's a lot to love about Alexa. The list of her skills grows daily. But one thing she can't do? Now, that might be by design, as some people would it find it creepy -- or just plain irritating --- to have Alexa start talking while they're in the middle of a phone call or TV show. Yet if your voice assistant, be it Amazon Alexa or Google Home, could start talking of its own volition, it would actually be very useful.

The march of Amazon's Alexa into the automotive world continues. At CES in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Toyota announced the voice technology would be incorporated with the carmaker's infotainment systems. Alexa will debut in "select Toyota and Lexus vehicles with Toyota Entune 3.0 App Suite and Lexus Enform App Suite 2.0 in 2018," Toyota said in a statement. Lexus is the company's luxury brand. The statement continued: "Additional models will be available in 2019. This feature will allow Toyota and Lexus customers in the United States to interact with Alexa in the car."

Voice is starting to redefine how consumers buy brands. Brands will increasingly have to navigate a world that doesn't have a traditional user interface -- zero UI. As Google CEO Sundar Pichai put it, "we will move from mobile first to an AI first world." Walker Sands recently reported that one in five (19%) have made a voice purchase through Amazon Echo or similar device and another third (33%) plan to do so in the next year. According to ComScore, 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020.

Learn about robotics using a kit to build your own robotic assistant. Futurism's mission is to empower our readers and drive the development of transformative technologies towards maximizing human potential.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have leapt off the pages of science fiction novels and burst into the real world. These technologies have game-changing implications for businesses of all sizes, whether you're planning to implement them yourself or contemplate the consequences of their adoption on the world at large. With these fields moving so fast, it's hard to stay on top of big changes, let alone smaller advances that can affect IT organizations and you personally. That's where AI and machine learning conferences come in. There's no better way to advance your career, learn new AI and ML skills, make new human connections, and maybe some non-human ones as well.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies are being integrated into many aspects of our everyday lives. If you use Siri or Amazon Echo, you've already been touched by AI to some degree. One area where this so-called "smart" technology has become particularly valuable is in the realm of cybersecurity. But despite the buzz, it's important to understand the real capabilities of intelligent automation in security. Many are surprised to learn that artificial intelligence in cybersecurity isn't a new concept.

The Apple Campus 2 is seen under construction in Cupertino, California in this aerial photo taken January 13, 2017. The case against Big Tech seems to be building by the week. And interestingly, some of the most powerful evidence is being provided by those who really know what they're talking about: tech insiders. Full disclosure: I am a tech insider myself. I run a tech company in Silicon Valley.

We all know that today's state-of-the-art AI can learn all sorts of things. It can learn to recognize kittens in YouTube videos or, perhaps more importantly, how to characterize traffic around an autonomous vehicle. All of us use speech at some point talking to our phones, our Google Home, our TV remote, or our Amazon Alexa. Of course, it does many other things to like stock predictions, robot walking, delivery routing... there are just too many to list. But most of what we read about in the regular press involves vision and occasionally human speech.

An international team has developed an AI algorithm with social skills that has outperformed humans in the ability to cooperate with people and machines in playing a variety of two-player games. The researchers, led by Iyad Rahwan, PhD, an MIT Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, tested humans and the algorithm, called S# ("S sharp"), in three types of interactions: machine-machine, human-machine, and human-human. In most instances, machines programmed with S# outperformed humans in finding compromises that benefit both parties. "Two humans, if they were honest with each other and loyal, would have done as well as two machines," said lead author BYU computer science professor Jacob Crandall. "As it is, about half of the humans lied at some point. So essentially, this particular algorithm is learning that moral characteristics are better [since it's programmed to not lie] and it also learns to maintain cooperation once it emerges."

How to handle it all, on Talking Tech. Your every move is being tracked. If you didn't realize it by now, get used to it. Because it will only become more widespread in the coming days, months and years. The Consumer Reports headlines this week about how smart TVs are monitoring your watching got a lot of attention, but it should hardly be a surprise.