In this interview, we speak to Toby Blackburn, the head of Business Development and Strategy at Emerald Cloud Lab, about the future of AI within the life science industry. I am Toby Blackburn and I am the head of Business Development and Strategy at Emerald Cloud Lab. I have always had a passion for science and how its ability to transform lives begins in the lab. I received my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University and joined Biogen in Drug Development, working to scale processes up to manufacturing scale. A few years later, I went back to school and received my MBA from Duke, and transitioned into an analytical development role.

What if computers had the ability to dream? Google's innovative DeepDream software is turning Artificial Intelligence neural networks inside out to comprehend how computers think. When a bunch of artificial brains at Google began producing surreal images from otherwise standard photos, engineers contrasted what they saw to dreamscapes. Their image-generation method was termed Inceptionism and the code that powered it was called DeepDream. Wikipedia says "DeepDream is a computer vision program created by Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev that uses a convolutional neural network to find and enhance patterns in images via algorithmic pareidolia, thus creating a dream-like hallucinogenic appearance in the deliberately over-processed images."

Inspired by the biological neural networks, this computing system "learns" to perform various tasks by taking into consideration certain examples, usually without being programmed with rules which are task-specific. Neural networks are a functional unit of deep learning and are inspired by the structure of the human brain. However, the more recent Artificial neural networks are functional unit of deep learning. The computing systems might learn to identify images that contain cats by analyzing example images that have been manually labeled as "cat" or "no cat". By using the results to identify cats in other images, they are able to learn to identify the actual image.

Artificial Intelligence is on the rise. With spending on artificial intelligence forecast to reach $57.6 billion in 2021 -- up from $12bn last year -- it's no surprise that nearly 85% of executives believe AI will bring a competitive advantage to their organisation. This 27-page report details the research that was done across multiple industries to determine the opportunities, trends, and challenges that will reshape the enterprise over the next two years. If you are interested in finding out more about Artificial Intelligence, take a look at the impressive speaker line up at the 3rd Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit 2018. Developed as a 100% case study based agenda with two streams for the early stage and mature users of Artificial Intelligence technologies, this event will focus on the war stories of implementing the tech and how to learn from mistakes.

Whether they are assisting your doctor in surgery, driving your car, analyzing crime patterns, or cleaning and providing the security system for your home, artificial intelligence (AI) will play a big role in urban living in by 2030. But to maximize the benefits of an AI-wired city tomorrow, expert and the public need to have a frank conversation today, according to the first report from Stanford University's 100-year study on AI, which was released last week. "As a society, we are now at a crucial juncture in determining how to deploy AI-based technologies in ways that promote, not hinder, democratic values such as freedom, equality, and transparency," the panel states in its report, which analyzes the role AI will play in the typical North American city in 2030, focusing on eight domains: transportation, home robots, healthcare, education, entertainment, low-resource communities, public safety and security, and employment and the workplace. "Policies should be evaluated as to whether they foster democratic values and equitable sharing of AI's benefits, or concentrate power and benefits in the hands of a fortunate few." The report outlines not only the ways AI could potentially be used throughout everyday life, but also how public opinion surrounding the implementation of AI has changed, and will continue to.

I've no doubt you'll be familiar with all of the talk regarding Artificial Intelligence's accelerating capabilities, impending arrival, and possible widespread disruption to life as we currently now know it. While some leaders are voicing their concerns on this new Artificial Intelligence era, claiming we're doomed for a'rise of the robots' type scenario where human existence is threatened. Other, more rational thought leaders – while recognising the threats AI poses, by advocating the measures required to safe guard against them – are however focussing on the positives of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the huge benefits it can offer. No area is perhaps more prime for an AI overhaul than the workplace. So much so, that AI along with other key ingredients such as The Internet of Things has led to the generally accepted arrival of the'Fourth Industrial Revolution'.