Forbes reports that "most AI projects fail"; Techrepublic puts the number at 85%. How do we reconcile this reality with claims of AI as representing an "existential threat" such as those from Elon Musk and futurism.com? Often called AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), the idea is a general-purpose, human-like intelligence like Hal from 2001 or the Terminator. First, all new technology by its nature is disruptive, and AI today is no exception. The cotton gin, the telephone, and certainly the internet and personal computers all created massive shifts in employment and commerce.

When Yann LeCun founded the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) lab in 2013, artificial intelligence was entering a boom period that his research helped trigger. Facebook's chief AI scientist had been among a group of computer scientists who retained faith in deep neural networks during an "AI winter" of reduced funding and interest in the field. In 2019, his efforts earned him a share of the Turning Award, together with his friends Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton. Today, AI is now an essential component of Facebook's vast array of applications, touching everything from Messenger to content moderation. "You take AI out of Facebook, and basically the services crumble," LeCun tells TNW. But fears are now emerging that another winter will soon arrive if AI can't live up to its current hype, particularly around the promise of artificial general intelligence (AGI): the idea that a machine can perform any intellectual task a human can -- and many that they can't.

The most useful robots are purpose-built to aid or augment human endeavors. They build our cars, carry heavy objects, and even perform surgery. Over the last year, however, when it comes to robotics we've spent a lot of time scratching our heads wondering "is this really necessary?" Let's take a look at these robots you might find on an all-machine Island of Misfit Toys. Go ahead and skip ahead to the 00:55 second mark if you're not incredibly interested in robots carrying torches (though, once they enter politics we should all be concerned about that).

The fact that developer Double Fine Productions has chosen to remaster the classic 1995 point-and-click adventure Full Throttle isn't in itself remarkable. The LucasArts titles of the mid-1990s are widely loved and celebrated, and we have already seen updates of stablemates Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle. What is remarkable is that the strength of the narrative design, silly gags and beautiful vistas hasn't diminished at all. Holding a PS4 controller in front of the new version, it's obvious that the 20-year-old game is 10 times more ambitious than most commercially-made video games today. Not in the action of the game, in which your biker man Ben merely solves increasingly obscure puzzles involving the collection and application of objects to scenery (most memorably illustrated in the classic command "Slam face on bar").

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage today at the Oculus Connect developers conference and showed off a taste of the company's mobile VR future. Lone Echo turns you into a robot assistant that can help a mission commander thanks to the use of your hands, made possible by the new Oculus Touch hand sensors. SAN JOSE -- When Oculus Rift first debuted, there were only a few ways to interact with the virtual world inside the headset. You could look at something and then click on a small control stick. This actually happened when I first experienced a VR T-Rex snarling in my face.