IBM recently announced several new Watson technologies designed to help organizations identify, understand, and analyze some of the most challenging aspects of the English language with greater clarity and insights. These new features are considered the first commercialization of key Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities to come from IBM Research's Project Debater. There is a new advanced sentiment analysis feature defined to identify and analyze idioms and colloquialisms for the first time. So it can recognize phrases such as "hardly helpful" or "hot under the collar." Phrases like those have been challenging for artificial intelligence systems since they are difficult for algorithms to spot.

IBM is announcing several new IBM Watson technologies designed to help organizations begin identifying, understanding and analyzing some of the most challenging aspects of the English language with greater clarity, for greater insights. The new technologies represent the first commercialization of key Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities to come from IBM Research's Project Debater, the only AI system capable of debating humans on complex topics. For example, a new advanced sentiment analysis feature is defined to identify and analyze idioms and colloquialisms for the first time. Phrases, like'hardly helpful,' or'hot under the collar,' have been challenging for AI systems because they are difficult for algorithms to spot. With advanced sentiment analysis, businesses can begin analyzing such language data with Watson APIs for a more holistic understanding of their operation.

On this week's episode of my podcast, I Have to Ask, I spoke to Annie Lowrey, a contributing editor at the Atlantic and the author of the new book Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World. It's about universal basic income--the idea that the government would give all its citizens checks every month. Versions of this proposal have caught on with people on the left as well as tech leaders in Silicon Valley and even some hardcore libertarians. Lowrey has written for many years now about economics, but Give People Money is both a reported work--she travels to Kenya, South Korea, and India to view their economic experiments--and a policy brief on what she believes can help alleviate some of the social and political discontent that has arisen from economic change and dislocation. Below is an edited excerpt from the show. In it, we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of UBI, whether or not we should be skeptical that so many Silicon Valley titans have embraced the idea, and how to make the safety net less vulnerable to political attacks.