Xavier Amatriain's Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Year-end Roundup

Hard to believe that it's only been a year since I was doing the previous end-of-year round up. So much has happened in the world of AI that it is hard to fit in a couple of paragraphs. Don't expect too many details, but do expect a lot of links to follow up on them. If I have to pick my main highlight of the year, that has to go to AlphaGo Zero (paper). Not only does this new approach improve in some of the most promising directions (e.g.