Government

Machine learning is now able to analyze court decisions and predict how judges may respond in certain situations, based on an analysis of existing caselaw. Artificial intelligence technology is currently available to analyze tax and employment caselaw, but it's easy to see how this could be relevant to the insurance space as well – particularly in the claims area. Potential uses could include analysis of decisions around tort liability, for example, or accident benefits cases. A tax law expert recently provided an illustration of how the technology works in a webinar Wednesday. Benjamin Alarie, CEO and co-founder of Blue J Legal, uses the artificial intelligence suite to predict how the courts may decide issues about things such as tax deductions.

Everybody knows that artificial intelligence is an exceptionally weaponizable technology. So it's no mystery why militaries everywhere are racing to exploit AI to its maximum potential. Autonomous vehicles, for example, will become the most formidable weapon systems humanity has ever developed. AI gives them the ability to see, hear, sense, and adjust real-time strategies far better and faster than most humans. It will almost certainly produce casualty counts in future battles that are staggering and lopsided, especially when one side is almost entirely composed of AI-powered intelligent weapons systems equipped with phalanxes of 3-D camera, millimeter-wave radar, biochemical detectors and other ambient sensors.

Social media companies are under tremendous pressure to police their platforms. National security officials press for takedowns of "terrorist content," parents call for removal of "startling videos" masquerading as content for kids, and users lobby for more aggressive approaches to hateful or abusive content. So it's not surprising that YouTube's first-ever Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, released this week, boasts that 8,284,039 videos were removed in the last quarter of 2017, thanks to a "combination of people and technology" that flag content that violates YouTube policies. But the report raises more questions about YouTube's removal policies than it answers, particularly with regard to the use of machine-learning algorithms that flag and remove content because they detect, for example, "pornography, incitement to violence, harassment, or hate speech." Content flagging and removal policies are increasingly consequential.

Deep ocean robotics is not generally an area where we expect to see much in the way of significant innovation. When we do write about submersible robots, they're usually confined to very near-surface operations. This isn't a total surprise: It seems like the only people who really worry about what's going on in the deep ocean (meaning hundreds or thousands of meters beneath the surface) are the military, the occasional scientist, and the oil and gas industry. Robots are important to these folks, even critical in some cases, but the technology has been more or less stagnant for decades, which is why we don't write about it very frequently. To be fair, there are some very good reasons why it's hard to innovate when it comes to submersible robotics.

Who will win the race to adopt artificial intelligence for cyber warfare--the defenders of vulnerable corporate networks or the cyber criminals constantly inventing new ways to attack them? The promise--or unrealistic hope--that AI will "transform the world," has given rise to a number of significant races. Most prominent is the race among nations for AI superiority, primarily the U.S. and China, with several European countries (e.g., France) and the European Union attempting to position themselves not too far behind. This reminds one of the nuclear arms-race and the use of the same technology for both beneficial and destructive purposes. In a recent paper warning of the potential of AI to "upend the foundations of nuclear deterrence," RAND researchers wrote: "The dual-use nature of many AI algorithms will mean AI research focused on one sector of society can be rapidly modified for use in the security sector as well."

The applications of artificial intelligence to enhance humans' life open a vast array of opportunities available to those who have the foresight to begin to venture down that path. Looking at the aging population trends in European countries, North America, Japan or China, we can easily conclude that one of the biggest challenges governments are facing is dealing with an increasing population over the age of 65 together with a declining birth rate. As The Independent published about grave concerns in Japan on this issue a few months ago, "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a "national movement" to address Japan's demographic challenges. The government has taken steps to keep older workers in their jobs longer, and to encourage companies to invest in automation". Aging-in-place may be the key to reducing the side-effects of the phenomenon where the number of rooms in nursing homes cannot keep up with the string increase in senior population.

With 400 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute and fleets of self-driving cars mapping high definition 3D maps of roads all over the world, data is being created, stored and processed at a rate never seen before. Ninety percent of the world's data has been created in the last two years, according to IBM and other industry sources, and with new data hungry applications on the rise (autonomous driving, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence), there's no sign of this trend abating. Organizing, storing and processing all that data comes with not only business, but also environmental challenges. In fact, networking and telecom equipment maker Huawei has estimated that global computing power could consume as much as 20% of global electricity in 2025 and account for 3.5% of global emissions.[1] All this data processing also requires large amounts of water to keep servers from overheating - roughly 1.8 liters for every kWh consumed - according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Having invented the first machine gun, Richard John Gatling explained (or at least justified) his invention in a letter to a friend in 1877: With such a machine, it would be possible to replace 100 men with rifles on the battlefield, greatly reducing the number of men injured or killed. This sentiment, replacing soldiers--or at least protecting them from harm to the greatest extent possible through the inventions of science and technology--has been a thoroughly American ambition since the Civil War. And now, with developments in computing, artificial intelligence and robotics, it may soon be possible to replace soldiers entirely. Only this time America is not alone and may not even be in the lead. Many countries in the world today, including Russia and China, are believed to be developing weapons that will have the ability to operate autonomously--discover a target, make the decision to engage and then attack, without human intervention.

The European Space Agency has released the first image taken by its Trace Gas Orbiter showing the ice-covered edge of a vast Martian crater. Scientists combined three pictures of the Korolev Crater taken from an altitude of 400 kilometers (249 miles) on April 15. Lead researcher Nicolas Thomas said Thursday the colors in the resulting image were also adjusted to best resemble those visible to the human eye. In this image provided by the European Space Agency, ESA, The ExoMars Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, captured this view of the rim of Korolev crater (73.3ºN/165.9ºE) The European Space Agency has released its first image taken by a probe orbiting Mars, showing the ice-covered edge of a vast crater.

When Emmanuel Macron announced his bid for the French presidency in November 2016 from Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest suburb in France, the message was clear: improving the social situation in the French banlieues, or suburbs, was one of his priorities. Seine-Saint-Denis, located just northeast of Paris, had long been synonymous with the conditions that blight France's banlieues - about 10 percent of France's population live in deprived areas with high unemployment and poverty rates, crime and substandard education. Recently, the Macron government announced plans to attempt what three of the preceding governments have tried to do since these banlieues came into existence: tackle what it calls "the discrimination and deprivation" faced by people living in poor suburban areas. One of the previous plans was introduced by the French politician Jean-Louis Borloo in 2004 under the presidency of Jacques Chirac. But Borloo's "social cohesion plan", which sought to improve employment and housing opportunities, did not go far.