Travolution Summit-Artificial intelligence coming to a computer near you

Anyone who has ever seen Terminator or iRobot will agree that the prospect of artificial intelligence can be quite scary.

But far from the pages of science fiction, artificial intelligence is actually already here...and it's getting smarter.

After delivering an extremely insightful presentation on the power of the Internet (dubbed the Fifth Estate), and its affect on companies' R&D and risk assessment, Andrew Bradford, head of operational planning at AOL, suggested that next significant shift of power (the Sixth Estate) may be held by smart computers.

"Imagine what will happen if someone creates a widget to firewall brands," Bradford pondered.

Taking that concept a step further, one could imagine a smart computer which actually thinks for users and cherry picks brand information based on individual consumers' purchasing and search behaviour.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution