I guess there's always a third option, the one Elon Musk worries about. That is, of course, Skynet. But AI is already here, even if it's not self-aware. The valid question is: what will AI do for us? Will it replace us, as we've seen automation do in factories?

Technology companies like IBM have arguably overhyped the capabilities of their artificial intelligence technologies over the past few years. But some executives believe the field is turning a corner, and businesses are starting to deliver practical applications of A.I. "There's some reality setting in," says Boston software executive Tom Wilde. "Some proof points need to show up. That said, the dollars being spent on [A.I. products] are pennies of what they're going to be" in the future. Wilde will try to deliver on the promise of A.I. in the business world as CEO of Indico, a small Boston-based machine learning and data analytics startup.

Artificial intelligence (including myriad subsets such as deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing and others) has maintained an enduring relevance in the contemporary IT landscape because of its novelty, its potential, and even its intrigue. Today, these facets of artificial intelligence are more than just'cool'--they represent a tangible means of increasing the ROI for data management infrastructure in that most objective of vertical industries: finance. "I think we've reached a turning point where there's this realization that for all the text and imaging that you're able to sift through with AI, there are people who have to sift through 400 pages of day," indico CEO and co-founder Slater Victoroff explained. Unstructured Data Deep learning can profoundly influence the productivity and efficacy of financial analysts in numerous ways, the vast majority of which pertain to gleaning insight from unstructured data. The appositeness of unstructured data in the financial vertical should not be underestimated, particularly for companies looking to make or monitor investments in any number of segments of this industry.

Intel is committed to producing CPUs to target machine learning systems, setting up an intriguing rivalry with graphical processing unit (GPU) vendor Nvidia. At the Intel Developer Forum yesterday, the company even brought out an executive from Chinese cloud giant Baidu to talk about the Xeon Phi, Intel's machine learning chip. The choice was interesting considering Baidu has been a vocal Nvidia customer. The potential ace up Intel's sleeve is the pending acquisition of Nervana, a deep learning startup reportedly working on a chip of its own. Intel executive vice president Diane Bryant mentioned Nervana during yesterday's keynote, but with the deal still not closed, it's understandable that she didn't articulate Intel's plans for the startup. The more immediate news for Intel was the announcement of its latest processor for machine learning.