Members of the writing team - which includes poets, novelists, playwrights and a former television writer - for Microsoft's Cortana artificial intelligence project. Until recently, Robyn Ewing was a writer in Hollywood, developing TV scripts and pitching pilots to film studios. Now, she is applying her creative talents toward building the personality of a different type of character - a virtual assistant, animated by artificial intelligence, that interacts with sick patients. Ewing works with engineers on the software program, called Sophie, which can be downloaded to a smartphone. The virtual nurse gently reminds users to check their medication, asks them how they are feeling or if they are in pain, then sends the data to a real doctor.

Next time you schedule a meeting and an assistant named Amy or Andrew Ingram sets up the logistics, here's a pro tip: You may be chatting with a robot. And if it's one of x.ai's bots, you might never know the difference. That was my experience when I exchanged emails with "Andrew" to set up an interview with x.ai's CEO. After I emailed x.ai's press contact, she referred me to Andrew to hammer out the details. Andrew proposed a time, thanked me when I accepted and sent out a calendar invitation.

Before a few hours ago, Ahead official has launch that Microsoft's Cortana App for Android leaked out, allowing eager users to get an early look at the virtual assistant application.

Wow, this week just sped by like a couple of LA heisters. We saw news of super computer-controlled Roboracecars, autonomous big rig convoys, "guardian angel" emergency override systems and the Google Car's toughest test to date. Come, take a look at the future of driving, where every seat is shotgun.

This was the subject of a question asked on Quora: What are the top 10 data mining or machine learning algorithms? Some modern algorithms such as collaborative filtering, recommendation engine, segmentation, or attribution modeling, are missing from the lists below. Algorithms from graph theory (to find the shortest path in a graph, or to detect connected components), from operations research (the simplex, to optimize the supply chain), or from time series, are not listed either. And I could not find MCM (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) and related algorithms used to process hierarchical, spatio-temporal and other Bayesian models. My point of view is of course biased, but I would like to also add some algorithms developed or re-developed at the Data Science Central's research lab: These algorithms are described in the article What you wont learn in statistics classes.

Now, she is applying her creative talents toward building the personality of a different type of character: a virtual assistant, animated by artificial intelligence, that interacts with sick patients. Unlike the fictional characters Ewing developed in Hollywood, who are put through adventures and plot twists, most virtual assistants are designed to perform largely prosaic tasks, such as reading through email, sending meeting reminders or turning off the lights. Writers for medical and productivity apps make character decisions, such as whether bots should be workaholics, self-effacing or eager beavers. At a recent meeting of Microsoft Cortana's six-person writing team -- which includes a poet, a novelist, a playwright and a former TV writer -- the group debated how to answer political questions.

Until recently, Robyn Ewing was a writer in Hollywood, developing TV scripts and pitching pilots to film studios. Now, she is applying her creative talents toward building the personality of a different type of character: a virtual assistant, animated by artificial intelligence, that interacts with sick patients. Ewing works with engineers on the software program, called Sophie, which can be downloaded to a smartphone. The virtual nurse gently reminds users to check their medication, asks them how they are feeling or if they are in pain, and then sends the data to a doctor. As tech behemoths and a wave of startups double down on virtual assistants that can chat with humans, writing for AI is becoming a hot job in Silicon Valley.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has made a lot of news recently. While much of that talk involves predictions of gloom and doom, that's not my focus here. When it comes to e-commerce, and really commerce in general, AI is poised to begin disrupting the entire industry. An interesting convergence is taking place; one that will have massive implications in the way merchants sell their products and services and the way consumers buy them. We are setting the stage for an era where transactions will take place with no human interaction at all.

The Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing are three technologies that are converging to disrupt nearly every industry. IoT refers to a connected network of objects embedded with technology that enables the collection and exchange of data. Cloud computing is the storing and retrieval of data, and accessing application programs via the Internet. Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence by machines. We are currently in the midst of the rise of the first wave of this technological convergence.

The supply chain needs to pay attention to the potential ways that augmented reality can revolutionize the industry, and artificial intelligence (AI) will be a driving force behind this change. AI is quickly taking over the tech world, cropping up in smart digital assistants such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Echo and Microsoft's Cortana. You might already know that AI can help you get directions, play chess, or order a pizza, but are you aware of how it can transform supply chain management? Artificial intelligence was first developed more than 60 years ago, but it has really taken off over the past few years. Whether it's autonomous car technology or facial recognition software, AI taking over and the supply chain needs to get on board.