It is easy to confuse common terminology in the fast-moving world of machine learning. For example, the term NLU is often believed to be interchangeable with the term NLP. But NLU is actually a subset of the wider world of NLP (albeit an important and challenging subset). Natural Language Processing (NLP) refers to all systems that work together to handle end-to-end interactions between machines and humans in the preferred language of the human. In other words, NLP lets people and machines talk to each other "naturally."

The "Alexa generation" of children who are raised barking orders at submissive voice-activated gadgets could grow up rude and entitled, say psychologists. Families increasingly use digital assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri to access information and services. The assistants use artificial intelligence to interpret voice commands and can respond in natural language. Owners of Amazon's Echo smart speaker can ask Alexa to play music, check the weather forecast or order a pizza. The gadgets are particularly popular with children, who tell them to play songs, help with homework or tell jokes.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Scientific American's sister publication, as "Digitale Demokratie statt Datendiktatur." "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another." The digital revolution is in full swing. How will it change our world? The amount of data we produce doubles every year. In other words: in 2016 we produced as much data as in the entire history of humankind through 2015. Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel. Soon, the things around us, possibly even our clothing, also will be connected with the Internet. It is estimated that in 10 years' time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money. Everything will become intelligent; soon we will not only have smart phones, but also smart homes, smart factories and smart cities. Should we also expect these developments to result in smart nations and a smarter planet? The field of artificial intelligence is, indeed, making breathtaking advances. In particular, it is contributing to the automation of data analysis. Artificial intelligence is no longer programmed line by line, but is now capable of learning, thereby continuously developing itself. Recently, Google's DeepMind algorithm taught itself how to win 49 Atari games. Algorithms can now recognize handwritten language and patterns almost as well as humans and even complete some tasks better than them. They are able to describe the contents of photos and videos. Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms. News content is, in part, automatically generated. This all has radical economic consequences: in the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today's jobs will be threatened by algorithms. It can be expected that supercomputers will soon surpass human capabilities in almost all areas--somewhere between 2020 and 2060.

Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant all have something in common – each AI is programmed to have a female voice. Other than Apple adding the option of a male voice for Siri, all of the technology on the market speaks with a softer tone. Although some consider this move an act of sexism, two studies have revealed that both men and women preferred female voices - which were found to be'warmer' and'understanding'. Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa (pictured is Amazon Echo, Alexa's home) and Google's Assistant all have a female voice. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has recently cited two studies that investigate these allegations, which have discovered that'both women and men find the female voice welcoming and warm,' reports Joanna Stern with WSJ. One study from Indian University played male and female synthesized voices for both men and women.

As Mark Zuckerberg rings in 2017, he can ask his personal assistant Jarvis to summon Auld Lang Syne through his living room speaker, or allow guests into his party, using facial recognition and a smart lock. His project to make himself a virtual personal assistant--so much like Tony Stark's in Iron Man that it carries the same name--was one of the Facebook founder's yearly goals for self-fulfillment. It also happens to be a great way to show off Facebook Messenger. "In some ways, this challenge was easier than I expected," Zuckerberg writes in a Facebook post, comparing it to his other goal of running 365 miles in 2016. He says that building the virtual assistant, which "uses several artificial intelligence techniques, including natural language processing, speech recognition, face recognition, and reinforcement learning, written in Python, PHP and Objective C," took less time than the running.

On December 15, 1791, when the U.S. government passed the first amendment and guaranteed freedom of speech, legislators were not thinking about Alexa, Siri, Cortana, or Google Assistant. People enjoy rights such as free speech in the United State and other countries around the world, and corporations are legally considered people for many purposes. As the field of artificial intelligence continues to grow and engineers pair it with natural language processing, we are increasingly seeing a voice-first future computer interface driven by intelligent assistants. And that matters, because where AI is answering, AI had to be listening. And when AI listens, sometimes it hears sensitive material.

Anna Rowe had a whirlwind romance with Antony Ray after meeting him through the dating app Tinder. But their 14-month relationship came crashing down when she discovered his profile was a fake. In fact, he was a married dad who had initially used photos of a Bollywood actor on his profile and had lured in other women too. "He used me like a hotel with benefits under the disguise of a romantic, loving relationship that he knew I craved," says Anna. The practice of using a fake profile to start an online romance is known as "catfishing".

The CloudBleed bug could have leaked secrets from major web companies, like Uber and OKCupid, Google researchers claim. A Google researcher has uncovered what may be the most worrying web leak of 2017 so far, possibly exposing passwords, private messages and other sensitive data from a vast number of sites, including major services like Uber, FitBit and OKCupid. It's being dubbed CloudLeak by some, as the problem was caused by a vulnerability in code from a hugely popular web company, CloudFlare, and was not dissimilar to the infamous Heartbleed bug of 2015 (though possibly more severe in terms of the potential for data leakage). It's similar to Heartbleed in that CloudFlare, which hosts and serves content for a at least 2 million websites, was returning random chunks of memory from vulnerable servers when requests came in. Making the issue even more severe was the fact that search engines were caching that leaked information.

Microsoft's Cortana, Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa are among a growing army of intelligent assistants raising a cacophony of questions (all in Natural Language, of course) about man versus machine in the pursuit of a flawless customer experience. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), 2017 was heralded to be "the year of voice recognition". The advent of Deep Learning has dramatically enhanced language technologies and, while there remains considerable progress to be made, Voice Recognition technology is already making audible waves in the insurance industry. Faceless computing Two key stories have ushered this "era of so-called faceless computing" into the insurance arena. In early January, Fukoku Mutual Life decided to make thirty-four employees redundant in favour of artificial intelligence.

The fintech sector is looking at Artificial Intelligence with increasing interest. Indeed, Financial Technology has been growing exponentially: there are about 4,000 startups in the space (a conservative estimate, actually) and fintech's value has grown from $930 million in 2008 to $12 billion in 2014. Furthermore, proof of that AI has started integrating with finance and e-banking systems has come from a piece of news which has been missed by the general public. I'm talking about a statement released by Kasisto concerning the release of chatbots dedicated to stock investments and which can be integrated with common digital tools. Kasisto is an American startup, established as a spin-off of SRI International, the research Institute founded by the Stanford University which created Siri, the digital assistant used by Apple.