Machine learning is probably the most important fundamental trend in technology today. Since the foundation of machine learning is data - lots and lots of data - it’s quite common to hear that the concern that companies that already have lots of data will get even stronger. There is some truth to this, but in fairly narrow ways, and meanwhile ML is also seeing much diffusion of capability - there may be as much decentralization as centralization.
Read MoreEveryone has heard of machine learning now, and every big company is working on projects around ‘AI’. We know this is a Next Big Thing. But we don’t yet have a settled sense of quite what machine learning means - what it will mean for tech companies or for companies in the broader economy, how to think structurally about what new things it could enable, and what important problems it might actually be able to solve.
Read MoreThe trap that some voice UIs fall into is that you pretend the users are talking to HAL 9000 when actually, you've just built a better IVR, and have no idea how to get from the IVR to HAL. How can we find the mental models for this to work - to bring less rather than more friction?
Read MoreMachine learning means every image ever taken can be searched or analyzed and insight extracted, at massive scale. Every glossy magazine archive is now structured data, and so is every video feed. How does this change retail?
Read MoreWith Amazon's Echo, Snapchat Spectacles or the Apple Watch, we're unbundling not just components but apps, and especially pieces of apps. We take an input or an output from an app on a phone and move it to a new context. We remove friction, but we also remove choices.
Read MoreWe’re going from computers with cameras, that take photos, to computers with eyes, that can see.
Read MoreAs machine learning starts working, how does that change Google, Apple and the smartphone interface? What companies get reshaped around machine learning?
Read MoreChat bots tap into two very current preoccupations. On one hand, the hope that they can actually work is a reflection of the ongoing explosion of AI, and on the other, they offer a way to reach users without having to get them to install an app.
Read MoreAs machine learning becomes the new thing, a lot more people have to know a lot more about it very quickly.
Read MoreGoogle Now looks like Google's most magical, artificially intelligent product. And in some senses it is, but it is also in some senses Google's most manual product.
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