In a giant warehouse in Reading, Massachusetts, I meet a pair of robots that look like goofy green footstools from the future. Their round eyes and satisfied grins are rendered with light emitting diodes. They sport small lidar sensors like tiny hats that scan nearby objects and people in 3D. Suddenly, one of them plays a chipper little tune, its mouth starts flashing, and its eyes morph into heart shapes. This means, I am told, that the robot is happy.

"The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence." As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly advanced, people are starting to worry about whether or not machines will eventually replace human workers. This concern is not unfounded, as there is a growing trend of automation in various industries, from manufacturing to customer service. In this blog post, we'll explore the topic of the future of work and the impact that AI may have on the job market. While some jobs are already being replaced by machines, the consensus among experts is that the most likely scenario is a shift in the types of jobs available.

With the decade winding down it's time for us to set our sights on the next one. The 2020s promises to be anything but dull. From the automation revolution and increasingly dangerous AI to geohacking the planet and radical advances in biotechnology, here are the most futuristic developments to expect in the next 10 years. Making predictions is easy; it's getting them right that's tough. That said, some tangible trends are emerging that should allow us to make some informed guesses about what the future will hold over the next 10 years. Of great concern, of course, is the pending automation revolution and the associated onset of technological unemployment.

In this special guest feature, Dirk Kanngiesser, co-founder and CEO of Cryptowerk, discusses how vendors implement Verifiable AI into their products to ensure that their AI algorithms are not handling data that has been tampered with, and how companies build Verifiable AI into their systems to verify that they are using safe data. Cryptowerk is a provider of data integrity solutions using blockchain technology. With more than 25 years of technology leadership experience, Dirk has led new product and business launches at multiple companies in both the U.S. and Europe. Businesses are increasingly using AI to automate processes to gain efficiencies, be more competitive and avoid disruption in their markets. According to a recent Accenture survey, 82% of executives say that their organizations are using data and algorithms based on that data to drive critical and automated decision-making at unprecedented scale.

Since the beginning of modern times, each industrial revolution was driven by different automation. While factory machines and fossil fuels drove the previous industrial revolutions, the on-going automation revolution is based on data-driven artificial intelligence (AI). Understanding its impact and what will be required to support the AI-driven automation revolution is a fundamental necessity. So, as we evaluate the impact and the support needed to harness this automation revolution, it seems that at the center of this revolution is the growing need for computing power. There are indicators that raw computing power is on its way to replacing fossil fuels and will be the most valued fuel in the rapidly emerging intelligence age.

Since the beginning of modern times, each industrial revolution was driven by different automation. While factory machines and fossil fuels drove the previous industrial revolutions, the on-going automation revolution is based on data-driven artificial intelligence (AI). Understanding its impact and what will be required to support the AI-driven automation revolution is a fundamental necessity. So, as we evaluate the impact and the support needed to harness this automation revolution, it seems that at the center of this revolution is the growing need for computing power. There are indicators that raw computing power is on its way to replacing fossil fuels and will be the most valued fuel in the rapidly emerging intelligence age.

Since the beginning of modern times, each industrial revolution was driven by different automation. While factory machines and fossil fuels drove the previous industrial revolutions, the on-going automation revolution is based on data-driven artificial intelligence (AI). Understanding its impact and what will be required to support the AI-driven automation revolution is a fundamental necessity. So, as we evaluate the impact and the support needed to harness this automation revolution, it seems that at the center of this revolution is the growing need for computing power. There are indicators that raw computing power is on its way to replacing fossil fuels and will be the most valued fuel in the rapidly emerging intelligence age.

As the 2018 holiday shopping season approaches, the retail sector will once again take center stage. Brick-and-mortar retailers haven't had it easy in the past decade, as more and more consumers shift their shopping habits as a result of ecommerce. However, despite some predictions that brick and mortars are doomed to become mere memories of the days of old, many retailers continue to turn a profit in an ecommerce-dominated market. Many successful brick-and-mortar retailers aren't just brick and mortars; they aggressively pursue omnichannel strategies that blend ecommerce with traditional commerce in a way that puts customers' needs first. The IoT (Internet of Things) is playing a key role in keeping retailers up to speed with consumers' wants and needs.

Harari, age 43, recently spoke to The Future of Everything about potential winners and losers in the automation revolution, how AI could help dictatorships outpace democracies, and the rise of machines more sympathetic than humans. "The automation revolution will make a lot of jobs disappear. This is not necessarily such a bad scenario. The question is whether it will be possible to support people's lives and the development of their emotional and spiritual lives without jobs. Many jobs--maybe even most jobs--that exist today are not worth defending. What we need to protect is the humans. In the current political and economic system, if you want to have your basic needs fulfilled and, for many people, to have meaning and purpose in your life, you need a job. If we could achieve these other aims without a job, then many jobs are not worth protecting. Many jobs are very difficult, very boring, very unfulfilling. People do them because they have to, not because it's really their dream to be a cashier or to drive a truck. If you can be released from these hours of working, you could perhaps develop your human potential in a much fuller way. In this sense, you are becoming more human."

When you open your Facebook, when you look through your images, make a search on google, a transaction on your bank account… An algorithm is there, to bring it for you, attempting to find fraudulent and to optimize your preferences. In the past, human build algorithms bots by giving them a particular set of instructions that human could explain. 'If that, then do this'. But many of those problems became too complicated and abstract in order for humans to write simple instructions for a computer to follow. It happened to be, that computer vision, aka, automated image analysis, is one of those problems.