The New Year is always a good time to reflect and renew, a perfect time to look back at the last twelve months before launching into the next. So, before we get too much further into 2020 and all that will unfold, here’s a look back at a few of the most spectacular artificial intelligence advances and failures of 2019.

The Feats

Amazon continues to expand its sphere of influence by placing its AI-driven Echo devices everywhere. Late in 2019, Amazon one-upped itself and released Amazon Alexa Auto. The little device, smaller than a deck of cards, plugs into your car’s USB or 12v power, connects to your phone via Blutooth, and suddenly gives you all the firepower of Alexa at your command. This is the next step to going truly hands-free in the car.

Jabra took noise cancelling headphones to the next level with their Elite 85H headphones. While noise cancelling headphones work great to drown out the thrum of airplane engines or the city bus you’re riding, they don’t quit more unexpected noises; the clatter of dropped items, crying babies, etc. Jabra took a big step towards doing just that. By using AI, these headphones are much better able to counter these unexpected sounds in almost real time. It’s real time enough for our ears, and a big leap in noise cancelling technology.

SpaceX continues to use AI to reach for, and get to, the stars. Like so much of the AI world, their success in 2019 was built on years of previous success (and planned failure), but 2019 stood above prior years in several ways. 2019 saw the first time that a private company sent a person-rated craft into space, and then complete an autonomous (AI-driven) docking with the International Space Station. 2019 was also the first year that they were able to catch and re-use a rocket faring (one of two pieces of the nose-cone). This is important not only to keep more trash from splashing down into the oceans, but also to make space flight much cheaper and one step closer to available for the masses.

The Flops

Roadstar.ai closed shop after just opening in 2017. Roadstar was a China-based self-driving car company with big aspirations to bring self-driving cars to the huge population of China. While the AI behind Roadstar may have been remarkable or just another attempt at self-driving cars, we’ll never know. The company folded under allegations of kickbacks and evidence that it was manipulating data provided to the government.

Jibo looked like the next big thing in talking home assistants in 2014. It was better than the others because its screen would follow your movements as it talked to you, giving owners the feeling that it was more like another member of the household than just a device on the shelf. Unfortunately, the simplicity and/or marketing dollars of the big tech companies edged Jibo further and further to the fringe of the AI household assistant channel, and in 2019, Jibo announced that it was pulling the plug on the data behind the device.

MapR, along with two other companies, made up 3 of the largest companies storing Big Data. Unfortunately for MapR, they were the smallest of the 3, and while they were innovative in their vision for Big Data in 2014, as third-to-market, there just hasn’t been enough market share for them to become profitable. After terrible earnings reports in 2019, their unnamed investor pulled out, leaving them cash strapped and forced to cut over 120 jobs.

As we move into the new year, it’s an exciting time for innovation with AI, hype about artificial intelligence, and revelations in the industry. Enjoy the new year and all it brings, especially as we look forward to more developments with artificial intelligence.

There’s always been a media buzz about AI, but if you noticed an increase this year, there’s a reason. Headlines and breaking news about AI are not just hype; there is substance to these news stories. AI is capturing attention because the technology is not only new and revolutionary, but it keeps delivering.

Products, services, and industries utilizing AI find that the theoretical can be made possible. It’s true that AI can do all the amazing things touted by the developers. It’s this belief that brings AI to the forefront and keeps it there.

The Bloom and Growth Of AI

At first, the novelty of AI sparked wild imaginings, causing a range of reactions from sheer excitement at the potential to deeply rooted fears at the implications. One thing was sure about AI:  it had a powerful effect on society.

Gradually, AI became part of the fabric of modern life, accepted into most households and implemented by many businesses. The test phase ended; AI was real and capable of integrating into our lives.

Now, AI is everywhere, and more advancements are just over the horizon that will make this technology even more incredible and functional. It’s the Golden Age of artificial intelligence, a point at which the potential has been appreciated and harnessed, turning concepts into new and more incredible practicalities. Artificial intelligence is a door to a remarkable future, and it just opened wide.

The Gartner Hype Cycle

There is a measurement for the impact of new technology on society called the Gartner Hype Cycle. Developed to track expectations for new tech over time, the chart works to pinpoint the introduction, excitement, disillusionment, reality, and productivity of new trends in technology. The idea is that following excitement comes a trough during which we experience disappointment that then turns into more realistic versions of the tech, making it productive.

Today, we are high on the peak of hype about AI, excited by the technology and innovation, holding inflated expectations for the ability for AI to do wonders. So far, it keeps meeting expectations. The ability to process big data fast and perform analytics in minutes that take humans weeks to sort and form conclusion is a big deal. The question everyone wants to know besides, “Does it work?” is “What else can we do with this tech?”

Stepping Through The Door

To answer that question, businesses and enterprises are scrambling to find out. Artificial intelligence is the new competitive edge, and it can’t happen overnight. Systems, technology, and support must be in place before the potential can come to fruition, so industries are shifting and changing to accommodate the tech. The question of AI’s worth has been answered, and now it’s a matter of catching up and staying afloat.

As it stands, we have yet to encounter a major disappointment with AI. Will the glory fade? Unlikely, given the power of the tech. However, we are still testing the bounds, finding limits to push past, and exploring the possibilities. So, the question remains, How high can we soar before we singe our wings? 

No job in the United States has seen more hiring growth in the last five years than artificial-intelligence specialist, a position dedicated to building AI systems and figuring out where to implement them. But is that career growth happening at a faster rate than our ability to address the ethical issues involved when machines make decisions that impact our lives and possibly invade our privacy?

Maybe so, says Dr. Steven Mintz (www.stevenmintzethics.com), author of Beyond Happiness and Meaning: Transforming Your Life Through Ethical Behavior. 

“Rules of the road are needed to ensure that artificial intelligence systems are designed in an ethical way and operate based on ethical principles,” he says. “There are plenty of questions that need to be addressed. What are the right ways to use AI? How can AI be used to foster fairness, justice and transparency? What are the implications of using AI for productivity and performance evaluation?”

Those who take jobs in this growing field will need to play a pivotal role in helping to work out those ethical issues, he says, and already there is somewhat of a global consensus about what should be the ethical principles in AI.

Those principles include:

• Transparency. People affected by the decisions a machine makes should be allowed to know what goes into that decision-making process.
• Non-maleficence. Never cause foreseeable or unintentional harm using AI, including discrimination, violation of privacy, or bodily harm.
• Justice. Monitor AI to prevent or reduce bias. How could a machine be biased? A recent National Law Review article gave this hypothetical example: A financially focused AI might decide that people whose names end in vowels are a high credit risk. That could negatively affect people of certain ethnicities, such as people of Italian or Japanese descent.
• Responsibility. Those involved in developing AI systems should be held accountable for their work.
• Privacy. An ethical AI system promotes privacy both as a value to uphold and a right to be protected.

Mintz points to one recent workplace survey that examined the views of employers and employees in a number of countries with respect to AI ethics policies, potential misuse, liability, and regulation.

“More than half of the employers questioned said their companies do not currently have a written policy on the ethical use of AI or bots,” Mintz says. “Another 21 percent expressed a concern that companies could use AI in an unethical manner.”

Progress is being made on some fronts, though.

In Australia, five major companies are involved in a trial run of eight principles developed as part of the government AI Ethics Framework. The idea behind the principles is to ensure that AI systems benefit individuals, society and the environment; respect human rights; don’t discriminate; and uphold privacy rights and data protection.

Mintz says the next step in the U.S. should be for the business community likewise to work with government agencies to identify ethical AI principles. 

“Unfortunately,” he says, “it seems the process is moving slowly and needs a nudge by technology companies, most of whom are directly affected by the ethical use of AI.”

Dr. Steven Mintz (www.stevenmintzethics.com), author of Beyond Happiness and Meaning: Transforming Your Life Through Ethical Behavior, has frequently commented on ethical issues in society and business ethics. His Workplace Ethics Advice blog has been recognized as one of the top 30 in corporate social responsibility. He also has served as an expert witness on ethics matters. Dr. Mintz spent almost 40 years of his life in academia. He has held positions as a chair in Accounting at San Francisco State University and Texas State University. He was the Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration at Cal State University, San Bernardino. He recently retired as a Professor Emeritus from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo.

Whenever an idea or concept trends, it will echo in pop culture, ensconcing itself into our collective consciousness. The arrival of a trend in pop culture signifies a shift in society as we accept or adapt to a new phenomenon. In the case of artificial intelligence, the more mainstream this technology becomes, the more we see appearances in pop culture for references of it. Media that explore significant topics related to AI become the platform for mass adoption or understanding of these issues because of their reach and accessibility.

Current Television Program

*Spoiler alert* This season, one network offers a show that grapples with the arrival of singularity and issues of morals related to treating AI as machine versus lifeform. Through a sensitive narrative that explores family bonds and tests loyalty and love when confronted by a machine that thinks –and…feels?—as humans do, the characters test out plausible scenarios of life with sentient machines.

The storyline braves some of the major considerations that confront our culture when it comes to singularity:  the extent of machine learning capability, threat level to humanity by the power of AI, dangers of programmers who control the machines, and emotional entanglement of love and fear when it comes to accepting a sentient AI into human life.

Frequent Movie Theme

In an age when we have grown to accept an artificial intelligence assistant in our phones and homes, films have explored the impact of these on human culture. Human nature compels us to feel thankful and grateful in response to an assistant fulfilling our needs, but it’s a one-sided relationship when it comes to AI assistance—or is it? Recent movies explore the ability for humans to feel more than just reactions to the assistants and develop deeper emotions, perhaps even love, as well as the fantastic idea of an AI that can reciprocate.

A big difference between artificial intelligence and humans is the capacity to experience emotion, and while there may come a time when singularity brings a sentient being, will that entity have the capacity to feel? Movie premises that play on the idea of humans falling in love with AI assistants or the AI developing feelings are delving into the plausibility and consequences for humans interacting with AI on an emotional level.

Basic Gaming Element

Many video games employ an artificial intelligence assistant to guide the player. In one case, the game version was the precursor to the real thing, acting as the inspiration for the voice and tone of a real AI assistant.

In the games, the assistant demonstrates an advantage to listening to an AI voice in your ear, feeding you information as needed and in many cases, anticipating your every need. If this plays out in the real world, the implications would be massive as humans had access to a constant stream of data, advice, and assistance. The games experiment with the potential for AI to integrate with human functioning to enhance human capabilities.

Taking The Pulse Of Pop Culture

As AI gains in popularity and becomes more mainstream, pop culture will both herald its arrival as well as pave the way for its implementation. From AI assistance to Singularity, pop culture has signaled the arrival of AI from concept to practical and plausible technology that we accept in our lives as part of society today.

Scientists have developed a ‘living machine’ that uses frog embryos that are developed by algorithms, reports Live Science.

What happens when you take cells from frog embryos and grow them into new organisms that were "evolved" by algorithms? You get something that researchers are calling the world's first "living machine."

Read article on Live Science

Worried about the impact of artificial intelligence, the European Union is developing new rules for its development, reports Bloomberg. 

The European Union is considering new legally binding requirements for developers of artificial intelligence in an effort to ensure modern technology is developed and used in an ethical way.

Read article on Bloomberg

Artificial intelligence is being studied in a lab in Phoenix to see if it can be used to stop Alzheimer’s disease, reports Phoenix Metro News.

A Phoenix laboratory is trying to stop Alzheimer's disease by using artificial intelligence. 

Read article on Phoenix Metro News

According to TNW, Google’s Reformer artificial intelligence understands the context of 1 million lines of words.

One of the prime challenges of a language-based AI model is to understand the context of the surrounding content.

Read article on TNW

It has now become common hearing people talking about how artificial intelligence (AI) will change various aspects and industries in every country on the planet. There are growing fears that this technology will eliminate many jobs and professions through automation of tasks. Many reports have shown the truth behind job automation especially for certain professions and demographics. For example, a report by Brookings Institution noted that automation threatens more than 25% of jobs in the US, most done by low-wage earners where tasks are repetitive and routine-based.

Despite these harsh realities, we have no option but to conform to the new changes and adopt these technologies due to the massive opportunities presented that far outweigh downsides. Although artificial intelligence will indeed make other tasks obsolete, it will also inject more jobs and change the existing ones for the better. Workers in different countries are now beginning to see the bright side of AI on their roles, and organizations and are slowly starting to change their minds on this technology. Most of them are now grateful for having robots as their coworkers because of how they simplify and streamline their lives.   

A majority of human workers now trust orders given by robots over those of human managers. Most of them are even turning to robots for advice instead of their human managers. In some companies like American Express, for example, tasks such as identifying product offers that are relevant to a specific customer segment are now made by AI, therefore taking over the role of managers and employees in handling these tasks.

AI is now taking over administrative tasks traditionally done by human managers while the roles of managers are now evolving as they focus more on soft skills over hard ones. Surveys have indicated that robots are far much better than human managers in doing tasks that require hard skills as they can easily give unbiased information, maintain work schedule, solve problems quickly and their budgets can also be easily managed. On the other hand, humans can complement them with better empathy. Unlike humans, robots can also provide answers to confidential information without causing fear among the interviewees. They can also evaluate performance of the team with no bias. Although robots and AI systems have advanced significantly, human managers still beat them in many areas. For instance, human managers can understand feelings of other humans better and can reliably provide oversight and direction.

Artificial intelligence collaboration with humans in workplaces is freeing up managers, giving them time to focus on other issues of their jobs. By cutting managers loose from their traditional tasks, AI is enhancing innovation. They allow managers to have more impact on their work by giving them time to create strong relationships with other employees that in the end impacts their roles.

Far from replacing managers, AI is improving their decision-making capabilities. The main change in decision making in management originates from the AI’s deep learning abilities. Machines through deep learning are becoming smarter with time as they continually learn from the experience of human managers just like the way managers gain their knowledge from interacting with other managers and encountering new challenges. With deep learning, AI promises to be part of decision making process in the coming days. Through the help of AI, managers can tap into the advice they can offer at any time due to large data they have. This will make managers smarter and more qualified to make informed decisions that can take a company to the next level.

From Super Bowl ads boasting the benefits of machine learning to rappers touting the advantages of artificial intelligence, nearly everyone knows about the cloud, how powerful it is, and the advantages it can provide for both businesses and consumers. Then you also have the pundits adding to the hype with absolute statements like this:

“If you have not developed a cloud-first strategy yet, you are likely falling behind your competitors” -Gartner

If you can find a flaw with that statement, then you’re ahead of the game.

Cloud-first is a brilliant strategy that has served as the de facto CIO direction for close to a decade. Nearly every CIO serving entities from the government to leading enterprises publicly embrace this approach. The cloud-first strategy has resulted in a predestined design where cloud-compatible data and applications find their way to the cloud to achieve efficiency and flexibility.

Cloud technologies are so powerful and beneficial that once an organizational cloud standard is in place, it is difficult to see favor in any other information systems. In so many ways, it has never been simpler to get on a cloud platform. One credit card swipe, and you’re on your way. As a result of these conveniences and benefits, we live in a world where public clouds, private clouds, cloud services, and a litany of cloud technologies help improve business power and add to the flexibility of organizations.  

A Cloud Wake-Up Call

Despite all the advantages of cloud computing, many organizations under a cloud mandate today find their technology, operating, and migration costs are not what they anticipated. Many IT departments have legacy applications that are not cloud-ready, plus significant shadow IT and overly complex cloud infrastructures are creating severe cloud sprawl. Other organizations can't build technology around their business initiatives because they don’t have the staff, or the necessary efforts are beyond their capabilities. For these and other cloud situations, a cloud-first approach is making matters worse.

For these and other situations, the cloud-first strategy has uncovered a whole new world of challenges: 

• The need for cost and consumption control tools 
• Complex compliance mandates and technical requirements
• Cloud staff acquisition and retention
• Increased security needs
• Lack of visibility and metrics
• Bifurcation of IT infrastructures
• Underperformance of legacy applications 

A New Cloud Phase

Hybrid and multi-cloud technologies have proven their effectiveness in the enterprise as the best path forward by adding functional co-existence to the informational technology picture and unlocking the potential for an application-centric cloud strategy. Cloud-leaning philosophies hold untold business values, but not every application out there was built with cloud technologies in mind. There are far more traditionally structured applications than not. Some applications might be better suited to one cloud service over a given cloud-based solution. Factors like security, integrity, auditing, and performance might become more complicated or costly within the constructs of a limitless cloud environment. Depending on your organization’s capabilities, some applications are simpler to leave and integrate through on-premise systems.

Application First

In this second decade of cloud, a new phase is emerging in which business advantages must be achieved by focusing on the user and taking an “application first” strategy rather than a cloud-first strategy. While public cloud and private cloud architectures have extremely powerful benefits, there are too many challenges to navigate when enterprises insist on solely implementing one versus the other. As part of a strategic architectural practice, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud approaches can properly shift the focus to the users and the type of applications they interact with.  

Being smart about the cloud means using its benefits correctly, according to your business, your users, and your applications. We can even go so far as to say that if you have not developed an application and user-first strategy as of 2020, you will fall behind your competitors. Once you’ve built an intelligent strategy, it’s time to move on to a discussion of platform and infrastructure advantages, such as edge computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, hybrid, auto scaling—technologies that are only possible with the more flexible application-first approach within hybrid, multi-cloud solutions, leaving cloud-first as an antiquated ideology.

Emil Sayegh is widely recognized as one of the industry’s cloud visionaries and "fathers of OpenStack" (he launched and led the cloud computing and hosting businesses for HP and Rackspace), can talk about everything from rising decentralization, to hybrid and edge clouds, and the significant impact that AI and Blockchain technologies will have on the industry. 

Artificial Intelligence is slowly taking over our day to day lives - especially when it comes to the workplace and using tech to enhance and fast-track tasks. There are many sectors in which AI can help improve services - specifically national health services, banking and legal services. Not only do some of the biggest names in tech debate over the future of AI and how it continues to make life easier and better for many, but we are now seeing some of the biggest tech companies now recruiting heavily in AI.

But, who is recruiting for AI roles the most and is making big steps in looking toward the future?

With AI-related jobs more than doubling over the past three years and job postings related to AI increasing by 119%, RS Components has analysed job posts from some of the world’s biggest tech companies to discover who has the highest percentage of AI-related job openings.

Microsoft leads the way with 1,964 AI job openings, equating to 36% of the total jobs they have on offer. With Bill Gates being one of the world’s richest people still, this is no surprise - Microsoft still leads the way with some of the most innovative and thought-provoking technological inventions.

Nvidia follows in second place with 837 of AI job openings, equating to 33% of total jobs they have on offer. The computer game company designs graphic processing units for the gaming and professional markets, so using systems and analytics such as AI helps with processes and development of new games.

A former Google Exec has predicted that AI will replace 40 per cent of jobs in the next 15 years. The Google Exec stated that AI will allow entire new industries to be built from the ground up with automation in mind. AI will be cheaper than human employees, however, it will also create new roles, as well as replace current ones.

Popular social media platform Facebook and streaming platform Netflix make it into the top ten with Facebook offering 191 jobs in AI, 6% of the total, and Netflix offering 35, also making up 6% of the total jobs they have on offer. Both companies are growing rapidly and are having to set new trends to keep up with technology, so it's only right that they are in the top 10 companies that are hiring in AI the most.

The largest tech company in the world, Apple, comes in at number 12 with 129 AI jobs on offer, only 3% of their total 4,574 jobs available. Apple is one of the most innovative companies in the world - alongside Google - so it may come as a surprise that they are in 12th place. This could be due to the fact that they are forward-thinking and hired the majority of their AI roles a few years back.

Another innovative company in the technology business is Bezos' e-commerce platform, Amazon, which comes in 15th place offering 297 roles in AI, 2% of its total 18,781 jobs on offer.

It’s clear that the technology sector prioritises hiring in AI, but which sectors will be next to drive up the market and start boosting their recruitment in AI?

Take a look at RS Components’ interactive campaign here which highlights all of the companies which are recruiting in AI.

Top Ten Global Companies with highest % of AI Jobs:

Everything comes with a price and with online business comes an ever-growing customer base. Businesses often fail to provide the right experience to each and every customer. Resulting in negative feedback all across social media and even worse - approximately 86% of buyers will make their buying decisions based on the experience with any business. To avoid these situations Artificial Intelligence came up with a solution - automated chatbots. Chatbots are capable of providing 24/7 customer service without costing you an arm and a leg. In fact, chatbots have been saving a huge sum of money for businesses according to Juniper research, businesses will be saving an estimated $11bn by 2025.

How Chatbots Improve Customer Service?

Customers today, expect an immediate response - more than 80% of your customers would like to have a real-time response to their queries. As per Hubspot, real-time means less than 10 minutes.

So let’s take a realistic look at the number of queries pending in your inboxes; can you provide a real-time response to these queries without automation? Chatbots are your best bet to meet the increasing demand for customer service that is immediate, accurate and “always-on”.

Chatbots 2.0

Not only AI chatbots help you cater to customer queries instantly but they also help you identify actual issues that require human support - the rest of these queries can easily be resolved through self-service options like website help page, FAQs and search results.

As per Forbes, chatbots today are far more advanced, error-free and accurate than they used to be.

Talking About Numbers

• According to salesforce the most popular CRM solution, chatbots have successfully improved customer satisfaction rate by up to 35%.
• The 2016 Gartner research predicted that 80% of all businesses around the globe will opt for chatbots by 2020 - which seems to be nearly accurate as 90% of all customers have rated instant response from business as important or very important in a recent study.
• 90% of all customer queries received by any business in the healthcare, banking and eCommerce industry will be catered by chatbots in 2022 - saving 70 cents per customer interaction. (Juniper Research)
• Not only 67% of your customers enjoy using chatbots all around the world, but actually prefer them over FAQs, search engines and human support agents for various reasons.

Most of the online consumers when asked why would they use chatbots and the answer most commonly found was “to get an immediate response in emergencies”. Next in line was to get a resolution of their issues and complaints. There is a complete study on how consumers use chatbots and how they are transforming customer service and other areas of business.

The Takeaway

Chatbots are smart, instant, cost-effective and user-friendly. A single chatbot is capable of responding to thousands of queries simultaneously and can actually provide a quick resolution to 69% of your customers, who are merely looking for a quick response to their simple questions.

A chatbot integrated into your website and social media can:

1. Improve your customer service response time
2. Boost your brand’s reputation
3. Improve your customer feedback
4. Give you opportunities to sell more to your customers
5. Encourages them to talk about your service to others
6. Review your brand positively on social media and review sites.

AI chatbots are not just a passing trend that the tech industry will get over. They are providing great value to businesses and customers both and will save companies an approximate $8 billion by 2022.

Usama Noman is Founder and CEO of Botsify.  Botsify is a platform for people and businesses to make their own smart Chatbots without knowing how to code.

People themselves know their businesses better than anyone and as experts on business cases they can automate tasks like FAQ's, Customer support, filling up a form, and collecting data from people. 

We aim to change the conversation in Business, Education, and Human Interface with any tech gadget. We automate conversations/ use-cases so that a person can now have a Computer talk/ show/ take instructions from the person across the screen. We are disruptive in our mission to be the best and are bringing new offerings in voice too!

Usama started Botsify working out of his living room stealing hours whenever he could get a chance and made the product from the ground up. During the early days, Usama acted as the sole engineer, designer, business developer, and support for the entire startup. Usama has been a pivotal part of several previous startups and development teams and is the front runner at Botsify. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from FAST NUCES - Karachi, bagging the silver medal and published a paper in IJACS on sentiment analysis on Amazon Reviews along the way.

I am not going to go into the long term future of AI because that would be highly speculative. I would rather focus on the short term future of AI, much of which is already taking place. For the purpose of this article I want to focus on AI-powered hyper-contextualization and how that impacts our realities. AI means that we can crunch insane amounts of data points together in order to map out and ultimately predict behavior. When it comes to content, this hyper-contextualization allows content to be curated according to personal taste. We already see this in social media for instance with curated feeds according to personal. political and religious preferences.

The result is that we become exposed to content that aligns with how we already think. So rather than be challenged by different lines of thought that force us to reconsider our points of view, these points of view are reinforced. Gaps between groups become wider and more challenging to bridge because the common ground is lost.

Now when you take it a few steps further, we can envision a world where content is curated at a sentence level to match audience preferences. Imagine reading an online article in which every sentence is devised to match your preference in tone, style, political alignment, biases etc.

Human thought has a binary nature. Right and wrong. Up and down. Forward and backward. Thought evolves through polarities. What happens to thought once you minimize the dialogical nature of ideas and make them monologues, with each idea further corroborating past behavior. tendencies and biases. I don't know what happens, but it certainly does not look like something positive to me.

In sharing lives with other humans, we run into conflicts constantly. Unlike AI, people are not necessarily consistently able to smartly predict what we are going to do next. As AI evolves, predicting where we are going to go before we even type an address on a map navigator, or what we want to buy for our home before even beginning a search in a marketplace, we become more and more unaccustomed to having explain how we think, what we want, and why we want it. AI can create the illusion that the world is made to the taste of each individual. Psychologically this could easily foment a scenario of social withdrawal and lack of desire to engage with others, even more so in adversarial situations.

No need to drive because the car will get you there. No need to enter the destination because it already knows based on your previous behavioral patterns, calendar, searches, and other data points. We have not seen the full ramifications of this reality, but the technological conditions for this scenario are already feasible and available. What’s left?

As we disengage from manual tasks there is a lot more bandwidth to think, structure, plan, architect. But do we have the educational framework to make use of this new bandwidth in a positive way? Or will we use this extra bandwidth to consume more, worry more, I am curious to see how we will evolve emotionally, spiritually, socially and politically to keep up with the ever-increasing level of technological transformation.

I do approach it with optimism and recognize the positive transformation potential that AI brings but believe that our attitude, flexibility, and discipline are crucial towards developing a healthy relationship with this new world that AI is opening up.

Gabriel Fairman, CEO of Bureau Works 

Music has and will always be an important part of society as long as human beings exist. However, as society changes in many aspects, music also evolves to meet its new needs and demands. For quite a while now, AI has been a buzzword in the technology space. It is increasingly becoming a talk of almost every industry primarily due to its ability to offer automation services, ease responsibilities and offer innovative workflows. The entry of this new technology into the music industry is important due for a few reasons. Although to some it may sound like cheap science fiction, it is true that we can have robots capable of creating songs, playing music and AI-enhanced robots writing song lyrics. Such practices are not new in the music industry.

Since 1951, the music industry has been trying to leverage on AI. The first time when AI entered into the music industry began when Alan Turing, a computer scientist recorded computer-generated melodies. Although the recording was filled with various disturbances, it was an important step towards developing an AI-enabled music business. Nowadays, AI trains itself to analyze various composition types through reinforcement learning, an approach which is a massive improvement from the time of Alan Turing. Through learning continuously, this technology is capable of extracting the characteristics of a music thesis in its entirety. You might think that the ability of AI to compose different innovative pieces of music is a big achievement, but its ability to write lyrics is even cooler than you can imagine. By training AI models with a large number of datasets that contain random music lyrics and compositions, AI can easily write music lyrics and make compositions.

Although some people have ill-advised opinions about AI, thinking it will replace artists, the truth is actually the opposite. While some may see it as a threat to creativity and musicians, it can play a crucial role in the music business which may end up being highly advantageous; if properly applied of course. In fact, AI may help musicians and employees with their work. For example, as indicated by the early manifestations, AI can satisfy the ever-increasing demand for music and promote understanding of what listeners want. In the current big data era, AI can help musicians understand the music market, and in the process develop music that’s in demand and has the capacity to reach people who actually want to listen.

The experience of the listener is an area that has suffered. When it comes to the music audience, there are many ways in which their experiences can be enhanced and revolutionized altogether. With cutting-edge tech such as AI, live performances can be taken to the next level by the artist and in the end will enhance the listener’s experience. This increases the musicians’ chances of success. This technology has also made it easy for music streaming platforms to sell their music as the listeners can simply hum a song to find the artist who sang it. Similarly, AI and technology in general will bring a lot of difference in the music industry through education. With different technologies, music students have many tools which not only allow them to stay connected but also assure them of space for collaboration on different projects.

In summation, AI is changing the music industry making it easy for stakeholders in this sector to carry out various activities. As technology changes, it is expected that the music industry will change as well to allow listeners and viewers to experience the best that is made possible by technology.

Machine Learning has been developed under the umbrella term of ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Essentially, it’s set to change the way businesses operate as know it. It’s already been adopted across many industries including healthcare, law, education and retail.

Logistics companies and industrial business, in particular, are enjoying the benefits that machine learning and AI can bring to their efficiency and production. Perhaps one of the biggest businesses to adopt this new technology is the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace, Alibaba.

What Can Machine Learning and AI Bring to Warehouse Management?

For those industries that are truly open to embracing new developments in technology, machine learning and AI can be revolutionary. It effectively means that robots are able to take on tasks that would usually be assigned to humans. This kind of technology greatly improves the productivity of a business, as robots are able to complete tasks at a faster pace than humans. There’s also less margin for human error, such as a parcel being delivered to the wrong address, for example.

Furthermore, machine learning algorithms can be used to forecast demand. It’s proving to be far more effective than existing methods that had no way of calculating demand over time. This means that a warehouse would be better equipped for coping with busier periods such as Black Friday of Christmas.

How Has Alibaba Implemented It?

The Chinese company Alibaba has a total of $248 billion transactions – more than eBay and Amazon combined! So, it’s safe to say that any company as influential as Alibaba must be entirely confident in artificial intelligence in order to use it. They now have the world’s largest automated warehouse – whereby some 700 robots do all of the work. These robots pick out the stock to send to customers and are now responsible for 70% of the work in the warehouse. Alibaba now claims that because of this technology, it will be eventually delivered to anyone in China within 24 hours and 72 hours for internationally.

Additionally, the robots are able to carry up to 500 kilograms above them as they make their way around the warehouse. Every robot is fitted with sensors, so they avoid colliding with one another. They also include a Wi-Fi feature so they can be summoned at any time by the employees.

Supply Chain Management

For a huge company like Alibaba, supply chain management is crucial. Thanks to app developers, machine learning makes it possible to discover patterns in the chain using algorithms. The computer is able to analyse the existing chain and advise on which areas could be improved. Due to the nature of the computer, it’s also able to identify such flaws far quicker than manual intervention by an external assessor. Alibaba can then control inventory levels, production planning, quality and transport management.

The Future of Machine Learning in Warehouses

Alibaba is not the only business bringing automation to warehouses. Amazon and food delivery service Ocado also use robots to transport parcels around their fulfilment centres. With more and more investment being pumped into the technology, it’s likely that machine learning will be utilised more in warehouses and factories across the globe. Its potential to deliver additional value to businesses, and therefore customers, cannot be ignored. For this reason, machine learning and artificial intelligence are predicted to become an essential element in future supply chains.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is responsible for technological advancements affecting many diverse aspects of society. Most of this development is focused on achieving economic or social benefits for the world’s population. As is often the case with powerful tools, there are also individuals and groups that would use the capabilities of AI and the related field of machine learning (ML) for nefarious purposes. We will take a look at a few ways where this use of technology has led to new issues and concerns by cybersecurity professionals. 

Conducting Spear-Phishing Attacks

Spear-phishing is a widely used method of performing cyber attacks and the ability to automate these attacks can make them exponentially more dangerous. IBM’s development of a highly targeted and evasive attack tool called DeepLocker is powered by AI. The company purposely hid malware in a video conferencing application and had DeepLocker unlock the program when prompted by facial recognition of a specific individual. 

IBM designed DeepLocker to understand how AI and malware can be used for new types of spear-phishing attacks. Its success indicates that this technology in the wrong hands can be used to cause havoc in many unexpected and detrimental ways. 

Identifying System Vulnerabilities

The United States Department of Defense has purchased technology from a private company that possesses self-healing capabilities and is optimized to employ machine learning techniques to discover system vulnerabilities. While this particular piece of software is under government control, there are certainly similar tools being developed by cyber criminals with the intention of finding exploitable vulnerabilities in the systems that society depends on every day.

Software vulnerabilities have always been a prime target of hackers. By delegating the labor and time-intensive tasks of identifying weak points to AI-powered programs, the hackers can spend more time sharpening the weapons with which to take advantage of vulnerabilities found by their artificially intelligent tools.

Controlling Autonomous Vehicles

The potential to use AI and ML techniques to hack into autonomous vehicles is a concern that needs to be addressed before the wide adoption of these machines. The ability to fool the vision and collision avoidance systems of these vehicles could lead to catastrophic results as traffic signs are ignored or rules of the road disregarded. 

Consumer drones can be weaponized and controlled by an application that uses ML to continually update their ability to avoid capture. These techniques could lead to new types of terrorist attacks that will be much harder to detect and prevent.

Impersonating Individuals

The ability to use machine learning to impersonate individuals in various ways opens up new avenues through which cybercriminals can exploit their victims. The creation of fake voice recordings and videos using AI are making it increasingly hard to determine between reality and an impersonation.

Using impersonation techniques, one may be tricked into providing personal details that otherwise would never be made public. This can lead to compromised systems or accounts and can be extremely detrimental in many ways.

These are just a few of the ways that the technologies of AI and ML may be used with malicious purpose. Society must be aware of the double-edged potential of these disciplines to bestow benefits on society or cause significant harm.