Meet Ivey! Ivey is an Intelligent Virtual Entity (IVE) who is designed to work as a marketing assistant at a major corporation. As an AI-powered virtual employee, she carries out certain pre-scheduled tasks on a regular basis--but she does much more than just that. Ivey can understand the virtual environment she works in, prioritize and schedule her own tasks, and interact with her "boss" John using natural language. She can perform complex analytical processes, and -- much like a human employee -- she can learn and improve based on feedback from her environment (and her boss). What does this look like in practical terms?

The state's new 25-member commission on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Associated Technologies picked its leadership and areas of focus in its first meeting. Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield was elected chairman and State Sen. Jabo Waggoner (R-Vestavia Hills) will serve as vice-chairman. Waggoner proposed a joint resolution creating the commission in the last legislative session, which Gov. Kay Ivey approved. The commission is expected to examine several areas of focus, such as how schools and universities can develop AI-educational programs and privacy issues for consumers. It will meet over the next seven months and deliver a report to Ivey in May 2020 on how AI can benefit the economy.

Last week a team of poker players in China were resoundingly defeated by "Lengpudashi". Meaning "cold poker master", Lengpudashi is the new, even more improved version of the Libratus AI (Artificial Intelligence) programme that I wrote about back in January. Not surprisingly, this latest AI victory has been big news: people have worried for years that robots equipped with AI will take over human jobs. Now not even poker is safe. Though computer programmes long ago proved their superiority in the classic skill game of chess, until now the bluffing and intuitive elements of poker – its very human elements – had made it hard for a machine to master.