In the past few months, artificial intelligence has managed to pass the bar exam, create award-winning art, and diagnose sick patients better than most physicians. Soon it might eliminate millions of jobs. At least those are the arguments being made by its boosters and detractors in Silicon Valley. But Amba Kak, the executive director of the AI Now Institute, a New York–based group studying artificial intelligence's effects on society, says Americans should view the technology with neither a sense of mystery nor a feeling of awed resignation. The former Federal Trade Commission adviser thinks regulators need to analyze AI's consumer and business applications with a shrewd, empowered skepticism. Kak and I discussed how to understand AI, the risks it poses, whether the technology is overhyped, and how to regulate it. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

It was a simpler time. A friend introduced us, pulling up a static yellow webpage using a shaky dial-up modem. A man stood forth, dressed in a dapper black pinstriped suit with a red-accented tie. He held one hand out, as if carrying an imaginary waiter's tray. He looked regal and confident and eminently at my service.

This embed requires accepting cookies from the embed's site to view the embed. Activate the link to accept cookies and view the embedded content. AI is a transformational technology impacting organizations across various industries--from providing new insights to improving operational efficiency to enhancing customer experiences. At Microsoft, we're working to turn meaningful innovation into actionable results. We asked thought leaders inside and outside of Microsoft about the acceleration and impact of AI for businesses. Laura Edell, Chief Data Scientist at Microsoft US; Kirk Borne, Chief Science Officer at DataPrime, Inc.; and Pascal Bornet, Chief Data Officer at Aera Technology, came together to share their perspectives on the top AI themes for businesses in 2022.

Azure's machine learning capabilities enhanced Clover's company-wide digital transformation initiative and provided the company with data that uncovered major inefficiencies in inventory, transportation and distribution sectors. For example, at the company's distribution centers, Azure's machine learning and data analysis capabilities help minimize order assembly by determining what products and how much to stock in each warehouse and where best to stock products within the warehouse. Thanks to the technology, processing teams nearly tripled their efficiency.

Looking ahead, I'm excited about this month's launch of our new hardware and software platform called Microsoft Azure Percept. It's an entire platform that aims to simplify the ways customers can enable AI capabilities at the edge. It seamlessly integrates with other Azure services, including Azure Machine Learning, Azure Live Video Analytics, and Azure Cognitive Services, to help provide detailed insight. The platform also provides detailed vision and audio insights in real time.

If it's not broken don't fix it, right? Despite technological progress, it's not uncommon for construction companies to still rely on spreadsheets, manual data entry, and paperwork. Low IT budgets and lack of time for training have contributed to a hesitancy around adopting new methods and technology. There are real, practical applications and benefits to modernizing your current processes. And if your construction company wants to remain competitive and not be left behind, you'll need to find ways to integrate new approaches into your strategy and workflows. These cutting-edge technologies are drastically changing how the industry operates and how future projects will be completed.

In June 2020 an Artificial Intelligence system called GPT-3 went live. This AI model is focused on Natural Language Programming and was trained by reading trillions of words and sentences online. The net result is that it can generate impressive text that humans can barely tell was created by a computer. A growing number of developers are being given access to GPT-3 to create real-world applications. In the coming months, you are going to start to see a plethora of AI applications that create content such as blogs, articles, reports, emails, advertising copy, and sales scripts.

Artificial intelligence is all about developing intelligent machines which is capable enough to work like humans. Some of the tasks that you can target with artificial intelligence are problem solving, speech recognition, learning and planning tasks. Artificial intelligence has been now implemented by different businesses so as to do things differently. For all this you need complete artificial intelligence software services to automate and maximize your business outcomes. Many of the customer service leaders in the market are now not able to create and continuously deliver the kind of the service that their customers expect from them.

As Head of Digital Innovation at O2, I get to see examples of technology changing the way we live and work on an almost daily basis. Last month I was asked to speak at a conference about the future of work. I think that there are three key developments whose impact will be such that they will change the way we work forever. According to research analysts Gartner, there will be 20 billion internet-connected, dedicated-function devices by 2020. These IoT devices will range from simple, connected household appliances through to the most advanced jet engines.

IBM's Watson is simply a question answering system. As its creators claim, it can understand, reason, learn and interact by incorporating machine learning techniques, natural language processing and automated reasoning. Right now, its achievements may seem ordinary, however, when it first came into existence around 10 years ago, they were simply astonishing. Since Watson can analyse large amounts of data, it can detect anomalies invisible to the human eye. What is more, it has been built in such a way to understand questions asked in natural language and give simple, yet detailed answers.