Reasons to Believe the A.I. Boom Is Real - NYTimes.com

Move over, social media and mobility: Silicon Valley has a next big thing, John Markoff writes, and it's A.I. and robots. It is useful to think of them as part of the same thing, since many robots are autonomous machines programmed for decision making based on A.I. The movement can be thought of as a spread of computing intelligence everywhere, on wheels and wings, in your pocket and all through your house. That's a big enough idea to fund scores of companies, and quite possibly set up the next Silicon Valley boom. Yet it's worth asking how much of this is reality and how much is wishful thinking.