'Woman reading book, under a night sky, dreamy atmosphere," I type into Deep Dream Generator's Text 2 Dream feature. In less than a minute, an image is returned to me showing what I've described. Welcome to the world of AI image generation, where you can create what on the surface looks like top-notch artwork using just a few text prompts, even if in reality your skills don't go beyond drawing stick figures. AI image generation seems to be everywhere: on TikTok, the popular AI Manga filter shows you what you look like in the Japanese comic style, while people in their droves are using it to create images for everything from company logos to picture books. It's already been used by one major publisher: sci-fi imprint Tor discovered that a cover it had created had used a licensed image created by AI, but decided to go ahead anyway "due to production constraints". The biggest players in AI include companies such as MidJourney, Stable Diffusion and Deep Dream Generator (DDG). They're free to use, up to a point, making them attractive to those just wanting to try them out. There's no denying that they're fun, but closer examination of the images they produce shows oddities. The face of the woman in my image has very odd features, and appears to be holding multiple books. The images also have a similarly polished, somewhat kitsch aesthetic. And, while there's an initial thrill at seeing an image appear, there's no creative satisfaction. The implications of AI image generation are far-reaching and could impact everything from film to graphic novels and more. Children's illustrators were quick to raise concerns about the technology on social media. Among them is author and illustrator Rob Biddulph, who says that AI-generated art "is the exact opposite of what I believe art to be.

'Woman reading book, under a night sky, dreamy atmosphere," I type into Deep Dream Generator's Text 2 Dream feature. In less than a minute, an image is returned to me showing what I've described. Welcome to the world of AI image generation, where you can create what on the surface looks like top-notch artwork using just a few text prompts, even if in reality your skills don't go beyond drawing stick figures. AI image generation seems to be everywhere: on TikTok, the popular AI Manga filter shows you what you look like in the Japanese comic style, while people in their droves are using it to create images for everything from company logos to picture books. It's already been used by one major publisher: sci-fi imprint Tor discovered that a cover it had created had used a licensed image created by AI, but decided to go ahead anyway "due to production constraints". The biggest players in AI include companies such as MidJourney, Stable Diffusion and Deep Dream Generator (DDG). They're free to use, up to a point, making them attractive to those just wanting to try them out. There's no denying that they're fun, but closer examination of the images they produce shows oddities. The face of the woman in my image has very odd features, and appears to be holding multiple books. The images also have a similarly polished, somewhat kitsch aesthetic. And, while there's an initial thrill at seeing an image appear, there's no creative satisfaction. The implications of AI image generation are far-reaching and could impact everything from film to graphic novels and more. Children's illustrators were quick to raise concerns about the technology on social media. Among them is author and illustrator Rob Biddulph, who says that AI-generated art "is the exact opposite of what I believe art to be.

Robots have mastered sight and sound, and new technology is helping them fine-tune their sense of touch for a surprising use case. With a background in electronics, engineering, and bionanotechnology, Dr. Atif Syed was fascinated with nano-scale devices that can have a massive impact on processes. This focus led Syed, the CEO of Wootzano, a UK-based robotics company, to create an electronic skin for robots that enables awareness of pressure sensitive contact. "I knew that one of the biggest issues was giving robots the sense of real touch like humans have," he explains. "The electronic skin sensors can feel how much force is applied and the exact direction of a motion. The most interesting part is that this capability is on a completely stretchable material."

From music streaming platforms to social media feeds and search engines, algorithms are used behind the scenes to tailor services to the unique preferences of individuals. Though the use of algorithms has been explored in health care since the origins of artificial intelligence, new strides in deep learning methods over the last decade are allowing clinicians to go after mass amounts of data that were previously inaccessible, transforming how doctors and clinical researchers detect, diagnose and treat disease. In addition to higher data-computing capacities and advanced algorithms, clinicians can now input data through written and spoken words rather than only quantitative lab and imaging results. As they talk with patients about subjective feelings and pain levels, detailed interpretations can be coded to augment "poking and prodding" data collected through sensors, giving machine-learning algorithms a fuller picture. With enough input, algorithms will be able to output a series of patterns which physicians can then use in their clinical practice for better diagnoses and understandings of disease.

Sal Syed admits it's almost too good to be true. The first time he utilized the Arccos Caddie, golf's first artificial intelligence-powered platform, he notched a hole-in-one. "My first experience was nothing short of remarkable," says Syed, who is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Arccos, a golf tracking, sensor and data company. "(Arccos Caddie) is similar to, almost like a Waze or Google Maps. It's giving you the optimal directions to get from Point A to Point B on the golf course. I know I'm biased but I can't imagine playing without it now."

As artificial intelligence and machine learning start to make their mark on healthcare in a big way, there's no shortage of hype. But there's also no small amount of uncertainty about just what it all means – literally. "We haven't settled on how to talk about this yet, and it's creating confusion in the market," said Leonard D'Avolio, assistant professor in the Brigham and Women's Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care (part of Harvard Medical School), and CEO of machine learning company Cyft. "If I describe what I do as cognitive computing, but a competitor describes what they do as AI or machine learning or data mining, it's hard to even understand what problems we are trying to solve." Because the problems that can be solved in healthcare with AI are numerous and notable, said Zeeshan Syed, director of the clinical inference and algorithms program at Stanford Health Care – whether it's better decision support at the bedside, better business intelligence for the C-suite or big-picture challenges such as managing care "across complex networks of providers for complex populations and complex diseases."

Stamford, Conn.-based Arccos Golf Wednesday launched a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence (AI) caddie for golf, saying the platform will help golfers of all skill levels achieve lower scores with the power of data-driven decisions. Dubbed Arccos Caddie, the platform is powered by the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and trained on a data set comprised of more than 61 million shots hit by the users of Arccos' golf-tracking system, elevation data and 386 million geotagged data points on more than 40,000 golf courses. Arccos notes the AI platform also accounts for weather conditions, including forecasted wind speed, wind direction, precipitation and temperature. "Every shot in golf involves a decision-making process, and the caddie's role has historically been to help you make more intelligent choices," said Sal Syed, CEO and co-founder of Arccos. "Today, however, less than three percent of players have access to a caddie.

"Every shot in golf involves a decision-making process, and the caddie's role has historically been to help you make more intelligent choices. Today, however, less than 3 percent of players have access to a caddie," said Sal Syed, CEO and Co-Founder of Arccos. "Everyone else is missing out on a crucial source of information that can help inform every shot. Arccos named Microsoft as its Official Cloud Partner in January 2017. Together, they are dedicated to creating artificial intelligence technologies that will move the connected golf category forward, taking it mainstream; this starts with Arccos Caddie.

To understand how machine learning can aid healthcare organizations, healthcare executives first must have a basic grasp of what machine learning is and what it can do. "Machine learning is about discovering new knowledge," said Zeeshan Syed, director of the clinical inference and algorithms program at Stanford Health Care and clinical associate professor, anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "At a high level, artificial intelligence is getting an agent, software, to behave like it's smart. One example might be a thermostat. If it's cold, the thermostat turns the heat on. Knowledge you are using is pre-derived and embedded into the device. Machine learning goes a step further: How do we derive this knowledge that we are using? It's knowledge derived from the data itself."

Arccos Golf announced Thursday that Microsoft will be its official cloud partner in an initiative that will see the two companies develop technologies that use advanced analytics to deliver insights to help golfers of all skill levels. The Arccos Course Analyzer will debut Jan. 24 at the PGA Show in Orlando as a platform that layers an Arccos user's data on top of millions of data points for more than 40,000 golf courses mapped in the Arccos system. It uses Microsoft Azure's cloud-computing services and machine learning capabilities to provide personalized recommendations for strategies on nearly every golf hole in the world. "Our goal is to create the most advanced Artificial Intelligence platform for golf," Arccos CEO and co-founder Sal Syed said in a statement. "It will leverage a user's personal performance history, all the shots ever taken by the Arccos community, weather, elevation, course features, equipment selections and much more. The resulting strategic advice will be smarter than anything that's humanly possible. With its broad suite of capabilities, Microsoft's Azure cloud platform is the ideal solution to unlock this vision."