Bots! AI! The future is the inevitable march to the singularity, as Ray Kurzweil famously wrote about in his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near. But is it? If you believe what you read this week, the future of civilization is upon us, in bot form, and it’s ready to order tacos.

There’s no doubt that the rise of the chat-bot is cool and will likely lead to a new wave of highly personalized technology. But the initial wave of bots, built within the very chat tools that are supposed to unite people, seems ironic. Here’s a big question: Will chat bots ultimately bring us closer together or push us further apart?

Take a read, then leave a comment – are you excited about the promise of bots?

• Artificial Intelligence for Everyday Use: Coming Soon – Pavel Alpeyev, Bloomberg.com
• The Future of Machine Intelligence – Tomasz Tunguz, tomtunguz.com
• The Chatbots Are Coming – and They Want to Help You Buy Stuff – Sarah Halzack, The Washington Post
• Facebook Is Opening Up Its “M” AI Platform As a Bot Engine for Developers – Nate Swanner, TNW
• The On-Demand Economy Is Growing, and Not Just for the Young and Wealthy – Charles Colby and Kelly Bell, The Harvard Business Review

Bonus story! The most-read blog post of the week:

• 3 Ways the Right Project Management Tool Improves Work Relationships, by Elizabeth Harrin