This week’s headlines in machine intelligence

Week of 13th July 2015

Research papers and thought leadership

• Microsoft Research held their Faculty Summit 2015 in Seattle. Here’s the video panel session on “Progress in AI: Myths, Realities, and Aspirations”
• The academic journal, Science, published a special issue on Artificial Intelligence (paywall). Thanks for the heads up, Ferenc!
• Ryan Adams, founder of WhetLab (acquired by Twitter a month ago) publishes Scalable Bayesian Inference for Excitatory Point Process Networks
• Google DeepMind publish a study, Massively Parallel Methods for Deep Reinforcement Learning
• How artificial intelligence is changing economic theory

Market news (new products, ideas, fundraising)

• Here’s what we know about ‘Cortex,’ Twitter’s new artificial intelligence group focused on understanding content. Team beefed up following recent acquisition of WhetLab.
• How deep learning is contributing to the development of artificial intelligence — a short overview of historical progression.
• Machine translation company, Unbabel, raises an undisclosed amount from investors including Workday Ventures
• DataCamp Gets $1M Seed Round To Develop Data Science Learning Platform
• CircleBack Closes $12M Funding Round, Expedites Mission to Organize World’s Contacts

Some fun stuff in AI and beyond

• 10 things I want Google Now to do for me. If you’re an entrepreneur developing a personal assistant application, take note! Opportunities for context awareness AI.
• Douglas Coupland, an artist in residence at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris, writes a provocative piece in the FT: We are data: the future of machine intelligence

Anything else catch your eye? Drop me a line on @nathanbenaich.

Playfair Capital is actively seeking out entrepreneurs building machine intelligence companies that change the way we live, work and play.