New York is becoming an artificial intelligence hub, for real

Serkan Piantino badgered his bosses at Facebook until they allowed him to open an office in New York. Today it employs more than 1,000 people and is a crucial center for the company's work on artificial intelligence. Now Piantino has new mission: bringing artificial intelligence to the masses. Backed by an undisclosed amount of seed money, Piantino's Spell Inc. startup was founded on the idea that AI tools can be built for anyone, not just computer engineers. "The public dialogue around AI is that it is mysterious and complicated, and deep learning is actually scary," Piantino said.