Yesterday we reported that Google is aiming to use machine learning in spam algorithms, to better fight spam. Shortly after I wrote that, former Google spam fighter Murat Yatagan, said machine learning is already baked into the spam algorithms. Murat worked at Google for several years and many of those years specifically on search quality and spam. His focus was on the Turkish market. He is now doing SEO like many former Google spam fighters.

How far is too far when it comes to machine learning? We live in the digital age where companies like Google collect information which feeds and informs their algorithms, potentially advancing their technology into the realm of the uncomfortable. When it comes to digital AI and algorithmic predictions, when do we say enough is enough? Algorithms are digital codes that sort, predict and filter information in a fashion that is similar to the way the human brain works. They are in effect all over the internet, from Google's search predictions to Netflix's recommendation section.

This article was taken from The WIRED World in 2016 -- our fourth annual trends report, a standalone magazine in which our network of expert writers and influencers predicts what's coming next. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online. When assessing a patient, medics look at snapshots of physiological data that are manually taken by doctors or nurses, and make decisions against patient history, family background and test results, as well as their own knowledge and experience. But what if this data was constantly being taken, every second of every day? And what if a system was clever enough to compare these readings to thousands of patients worldwide with a similar history and disorder, as well as all the current clinical guidelines and studies, and make clinical suggestions to doctors?

Which are the most hyped technologies today? Check out Gartner's latest 2015 Hype Cycle Report. Autonomous cars & IoT stay at the peak while big data is losing its prominence. Smart Dust is a new cool technology for the next decade!

The Henn-na Hotel in Japan just got more futuristic. Walking up to the front desk, customers are greeted with the familiar bow and the typical "Welcome" spiel from a typical Japanese woman. Henn-na means either "flower" or "it's weird," depending on your interpretation. Service bots and AI are used to help customers in retail stores like Lowe's. Why shouldn't they help guests check into a room?

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.

Meet Tay, Microsoft's short-lived chatbot that was supposed to seem like your average millennial woman but was quickly corrupted by Internet trolling. "Unfortunately," a Microsoft spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an email, "within the first 24 hours of coming online, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tay's commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways. Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana can't hold much conversation, but they do carry out tasks like making phone calls and conducting a Google search. In China, Microsoft has a chatbot named Xiaoice that has been lauded for its ability to hold realistic conversations with humans.

Once you really solve a problem like direct brain-computer interface ... when brains and computers can interact directly, that's it, that's the end of history, that's the end of biology as we know it. Nobody has a clue what will happen once you solve this. If life can break out of the organic realm into the vastness of the inorganic realm, you cannot even begin to imagine what the consequences will be, because your imagination at present is organic. So if there is a point of Singularity, by definition, we have no way of even starting to imagine what's happening beyond that. YUVAL NOAH HARARI, Lecturer, Department of History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

The world of computing has followed Moore's Law for generations. The "law," which was developed by researcher Gordon Moore in the 1970s, says that the number of transistors that can be squeezed into a set amount of space will double every two years. It's been a reliable gauge ever since. Moore's Law may be nearing its end, however. Tom Simonite at the MIT Technology Review writes that Intel has declared in a regulatory filing what insiders have suspected: The company is slowing the release of new chips in a manner that doesn't keep pace with the law.

One day after trolls transformed Microsoft's chatbot Tay into a ditzy, Holocaust-denying monster, the company has issued an apology for failing to realize that people on the internet are dicks. "We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay," wrote Peter Lee, the corporate vice president for Microsoft Research, with what one imagines was a look of pained bewilderment unique to someone who just learned that 4chan exists. As anyone who followed the debacle will tell you, the most astonishing thing about it was not the revelation that trolls will troll--that's a given--but rather that Microsoft somehow didn't anticipate the very real possibility of rampant trolling. As we developed Tay, we planned and implemented a lot of filtering and conducted extensive user studies with diverse user groups. We stress-tested Tay under a variety of conditions, specifically to make interacting with Tay a positive experience.