Angie Wisdom and Dr. Chirag Shah discuss how artificial intelligence could play a role in online and professional relationships. It might be some time before we see the futuristic concept of artificial intelligence that is depicted in science fiction novels and films come about in real life, but AI is still all around us. Most homes have some form of voice assistant gadget, such as an Alexa smart home device or Siri assistant on an iPhone. These machines have developed the ability to learn and respond in a way similar to humans' cognitive abilities, all thanks to artificial intelligence algorithms. Alexa and Siri are applications powered by artificial intelligence.

So let's dive into some specifics, shall we? In a nutshell, Augment adds numerous augments (get it?!) onto your existing devices. Those lowercase augments are best described as layers of intelligence that observe what you're doing and then step in as needed to make sure you always have the info you need exactly when you need it. If that concept rings a bell, congratulations: You've been paying attention. Philosophically, at least, Augment is strikingly similar to Heyday, a context-surfacing service I covered for Fast Company earlier this year.

Research-led Cork start-up CergenX is putting a vast databank of baby brainwaves to good work using the AI that underpins tech like Siri and Alexa. According to Jason Mowles, around five in every 1,000 newborn babies have some form of brain abnormality at birth, and many of these go undetected. "It is simply not possible to test all newborns," said Mowles. Research indicates that early detection of brain injury would improve long-term outcomes, as the sooner treatments or interventions are introduced, the better. And research is at the core of Mowles' start-up, CergenX, which sets out to make testing of all newborns not only possible, but effective at evaluating brain health as this early stage of life. Driving the research behind the start-up is co-founder Geraldine Boylan, professor of neonatal physiology at University College Cork (UCC) and co-founder and director of the Infant research centre.

You may be familiar with Bixby. Get ready to meet Xena, the workplace AI office assistant designed to take all the mundane tasks off your To-Do List. The idea is a part of the Xembly platform (itself billed as an "Automated Chief of Staff"), a new start-up led by some industry heavyweights like Pete Christothoulou from Marchex, Jason Flaks from Microsoft, and Peter Francis from Qualtrics. It has backing from the likes of Lightspeed Venture Partners, DocuSign founder Tom Gonser, and former Microsoft CXO Julie Larson-Green. That's why you should probably get ready for it – with that sort of backing, it'll be finding its way into your business eventually, even if it's not quite as soon as you might like.

Even though Siri and Alexa are chatbots that many people now believe they can't live without, it was the SmarterChild chatbot that lived on many people's buddy lists in 2000, and that gave humans their first widespread exposure to chatbots. The thing that SmarterChild, Siri and Alexa have, along with other successful chatbots (computer programs designed to mimic human conversation), is personality. Robert Hoffer, the creator of SmarterChild, explained their goal was to create a bot people would actually use and to achieve that objective, "we had to make the best friend on the Internet." They succeeded in creating a bot who could respond with funny, sad, and sarcastic comments--ultimately more human-like than a robot. And, back in 2000, it spoke to 250,000 humans each day, which was extraordinary for the time, so there's no debate that it was used!

But it's obvious that the time has come. We need to ditch big tech's virtual assistants and calmly demand a little more autonomy in our AI. Up front: The dream has always been to make personal assistants accessible to everyone. Since most of us can't afford our own human assistant, big tech decided to combine chatbots and natural language processing (NLP) to create a virtual version of the real thing. Billions of people use these AI-powered tools everyday.

The Internet is a constantly evolving technology that continues to innovate. So far, we've experienced Web 1.0 and 2.0, and there's much discussion of what to expect from Web 3.0. Web 1.0 provided a static experience for users without the ability to create the content-rich sites we have today. Web 2.0 brought us together with social media and dynamic websites, but at the cost of centralization. Web 3.0 looks to give us control of our online information and also create a semantic web.

Martin Taylor is the Deputy CEO and Co-Founder of Content Guru. Siri and Alexa -- the robots we couldn't live without. Throughout the pandemic, these voice assistants have proven invaluable to many, as users turned towards Alexa and Google Assistant for entertainment, education and emotional help. In fact, according to one survey, 3 in 5 users believe that their voice assistant has helped them get through isolation, and 40% will continue to use their digital assistants more as a result of the pandemic. These smart assistants are so effective because they're driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

Despite the fact that AI is already being utilised in a huge variety of ways by a myriad of industry, it's still perceived as being an emergent technology, something of great promise yet to materialise. This couldn't be further from reality. These four examples of AI and machine learning have already been saving you time and effort for years at this point, but it's only really in the last few years that they've become completely viable and effective. I mean, remember Siri when it first came out? AI, along with machine learning, has made a massive number of things possible across industries, proving critical to many different tech platforms.

Women have been made into servants once again. Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google's Google Home peddle stereotypes of female subservience--which puts their "progressive" parent companies in a moral predicament. People often comment on the sexism inherent in these subservient bots' female voices, but few have considered the real-life implications of the devices' lackluster responses to sexual harassment. By letting users verbally abuse these assistants without ramifications, their parent companies are allowing certain behavioral stereotypes to be perpetuated. Everyone has an ethical imperative to help prevent abuse, but companies producing digital female servants warrant extra scrutiny, especially if they can unintentionally reinforce their abusers' actions as normal or acceptable. In order to substantiate claims about these bots' responses to sexual harassment and the ethical implications of their pre-programmed responses, Quartz gathered comprehensive data on their programming by systematically testing how each reacts to harassment. The message is clear: Instead of fighting back against abuse, each bot helps entrench sexist tropes through their passivity. And Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have the responsibility to do something about it.