Tech in 2016: The advent of artificial intelligence and digital assistants

Apple was the first to introduce a digital assistant when it acquired Siri and baked it into the OS. The makers of Siri went on to create Viv, a realisation of their original vision for Siri. Viv was acquired by Samsung this year. Despite the initial head start with Siri, Apple lost ground over the subsequent years by being very secretive about its research. As Apple employees were not allowed to publish research, the best talent was not attracted to the company. All that changed with the hire of prominent Carnegie Mellon University researcher Russ Salakhutdinov earlier in the year. Apple has already gone ahead and published its first research paper . [caption id=“attachment_354928” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Apple’s research allows them to train machines on image data sets, without annotations of the details. Image: University of Cambridge/ Max Planck Institute for Informatics[/caption] Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google remarked on the onset of a remarkable new disruptive technology at the October hardware event by Google. Every ten years or so, a transformational technology comes along that changes everything. In the mid 80s this was the desktop computer, in the mid 90s, this was the internet, in the mid 2000s, the smartphone revolution began. We are in the mid 2010s, and the next big change will come about because of Artificial Intelligence.  US President Barack Obama said in an interview that it was necessary to imbibe artificial intelligences with human values . Humans have to make harsh decisions, and Obama raised the question of whether machines should be allowed to make such decisions. For example: Can a self driving car be trusted to decide between running over a pedestrian or involving the passengers of the vehicle in a fatal crash? The International Convention on Conventional Weapons meet for a review conference, where they agreed to regulate lethal autonomous vehicle systems (LAWS), or killer robots. The White House said that it was tweaking policy to handle the huge number of human jobs that are now going to be done by machines. [caption id=“attachment_339157” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  The Amazon Echo and the Google Home[/caption] The year saw the growth of an all new product category called smart speakers. The Echo by Amazon was a pioneer in this category, with a voice controlled digital assistant hardware for living spaces. The Amazon Echo Dot was introduced this year and Google made its debut in the smart speaker space with Google Home . Microsoft hinted at a high-end smart speaker by Harman Kardon. According to analyst firm, Gartner, smart home speakers are expected to be a  $2.1 billion industry by 2020 .

AI was the talk of the town at the _ReCode_ tech conference , with discussions around AI by IBM, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. Elon Musk even suggested that human brains should be hooked up to computers with neural laces so that mankind can keep up to machines. Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet unit Google, Facebook Inc, IBM and Microsoft have teamed up to create a non profit organisation that hopes to increase the awareness about aritificial intelligence in the minds of the public. Here is a look back at the biggest artificial intelligence stories of the year.

• Google DeepMind AI can now learn things on its own
• Here’s how DeepMind-powered AI help cut down Google’s electricity bill
• Google DeepMind now alerts UK doctors of timely medical interventions that can save lives
• Google open sources DeepMind Lab, aims to make general AI a reality
• The big bet by Google for the next ten years is the incredibly useful Google Assistant
• Google DeepMind victory: AI will one day prevail but beauty of Go remains says Go Master
• Deepmind AI by Google takes on Starcraft by Blizzard after mastering Go

[caption id=“attachment_355293” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg even coded his own personal digital assistant [/caption] Facebook

• Facebook AI is getting more like humans at generating captions for images
• Here’s how AI is empowering Facebook to create a better world
• Facebook plans to develop Artificial Intelligence to automatically flag offensive live stream videos
• Facebook testing AI tech that describes photos to the visually challenged
• Facebook AI Labs working to identify your hidden face
• Facebook releases its AI bot-building research in the form of fastText library
• Facebook Messenger chatbots jeopardise privacy
• Facebook F8: Zuckerberg announces chatbots for Messenger

• Microsoft opens up Cortana to developers and manufacturers with Skills Kit and Devices SDK
• Facebook plans to develop Artificial Intelligence to automatically flag offensive live stream videos
• Microsoft’s Cortana can now talk to other Windows 10 devices, share battery info and notifications
• Microsoft teases premium smart speaker by Harman Kardon powered by Cortana
• Cortana on iOS can now remember where you parked your car
• Build 2016: Microsoft presents Cortana Bots, Cognitive Services APIs and more
• Build 2016: Microsoft Skype bots preview announced

• Amazon announces three new AI services called Lex, Polly and Rekognition for AWS
• Amazon challenges Apple and Spotify with new music streaming service
• Amazon just put Alexa in a browser
• Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant now open to third-party hardware, software
• Build Amazon’s amazing Echo speaker with just a Raspberry Pi
• Amazon introduces Alexa voice assistant powered Tap, Echo Dot
• Amazon India launches ‘Amazon Launchpad’ to help startups launch and distribute their products
• Just before Google Home release, Amazon ads show how Alexa can be a household hero

[caption id=“attachment_333548” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Bragi wearables for workplaces are powered by the AI capabilities of Watson.[/caption] IBM

• IBM’s Watson fights diabetes with American Diabetes Association and other collaborations
• Law firm hires IBM Watson AI based legal assistant Ross
• The Weather channel launched Watson-powered bot for Facebook Messenger
• IBM and Cisco to bring Watson to the workplace
• IBM launches Global Watson Internet of Things consulting solutions
• IFA 2016: IBM Watson and Bragi come together to make IoT hearables for workplaces
• IBM Watson: Watch the first movie trailer to be created entirely by AI
• IBM beta tests AI cyber security services from Watson for 40 global clients
• IBM launches framework to embed Watson in robots, devices and smart things