Remember when loads of academics were confidently predicting that technology, from robots to AI, was about to destroy all our jobs? We went into Covid with record employment before the pandemic, not the robots, knocked a chunk of people out of the workforce. In fact, technology has done something almost worse: giving academics a whole new job producing studies showing how easily technology affects us even on important judgments, from hiring to court cases. Two came across my desk last week highlighting the danger. The first paper turns the tables on the trend for job applicants to be screened by algorithms.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park invites applications for exceptionally qualified candidates to apply for tenure-track faculty positions, with a target start date of August 2023 or later. Priority will be given to candidates with expertise in the Design and Industrial AI area. Exceptional candidates with expertise outside these areas are also welcome to apply. Qualifications: Candidates for the rank of Assistant Professor should have received or expect to receive their PhD in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline prior to employment. Additionally, candidates should be creative and adaptable, and have a high potential for both research and teaching.

Grzegorz Rutkowski has studied the great masters of texture and light--Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer--and his ability to mimic their techniques has made him an in-demand painter of fantastical beasts and landscapes for the videogame industry. But these days, instead of devoting all his time to painting in his sun-dappled studio near the picturesque medieval square in the town of Pieńsk, Poland, he's spending ever more of it on Zoom calls, talking to lawyers, artists and others about the strange reason he is suddenly far more famous than he ever thought possible.

Former federal prosecutor Trey Gowdy gives his take on the Alex Murdaugh trial and Hunter Biden's attorney calling for criminal probe of the laptop on'The Story.' High-profile lawyer Abbe Lowell again entered the national spotlight this week representing Hunter Biden in the legal battle involving his infamous laptop, and Lowell's hiring signals how seriously Biden is taking his situation, an attorney tells Fox News Digital. "Abbe is not cheap, and you don't bring in Abbe unless you want to go to war or prevent one," said the source who's worked with Lowell. He hasn't been charged with anything, but they're trying to prevent that because that would be bad for [President] Biden and Hunter." Lowell made a splash this week with letters urging prosecutors to launch state and federal investigations into John Paul Mac Isaac, who he accused of "unlawfully" accessing the younger Biden's personal data on his laptop after it was left at his repair shop in 2019. Former President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and other notable Biden critics were also listed in the lawsuit for their role in disseminating the information to the public. Mac Isaac chose to work with President Donald Trump's personal lawyer to weaponize Mr. Biden's personal computer data against his father, Joseph R. Biden, by unlawfully causing the provision of Mr. Biden's personal data to the New York Post," Lowell wrote Wednesday.

Artists, illustrators and photographers have often led the way in embracing new technology. The concerns that creators such as Harry Woodgate have about AI programs ('It's the opposite of art': why illustrators are furious about AI, 23 January) that "rely entirely on the pirated intellectual property of countless working artists, photographers, illustrators and other rights holders" must be heeded. The UK's £116bn cultural and creative industries have an opportunity to be world leaders in developing and sustaining talent in emerging technologies, but the government must ensure that artists' rights are protected.

OpenAI is ready to start capitalizing on ChatGPT's buzz. On Wednesday, the firm announced it will offer a pilot $20-a-month subscription version of the chatbot called ChatGPT Plus, which gives priority access to users during peak time and faster responses. The free version remains available but is so popular that it is often at capacity or slow to give responses. In a clear push for commercialization, OpenAI also said it will roll out an API waitlist, different paid tiers, and business plans. OpenAI, it seems, believes enterprises will be willing to pay for its chatbot's capabilities.

The U.K. Government is seemingly backtracking on plans that would have allowed text and data mining "for any purpose," plans designed to position the U.K. as a "global AI superpower." The news emerges following months of blowback from creative industries concerned about what impact the rules might have on protected works. Text and data mining, for the uninitiated, is an essential component of just about every AI application, allowing researchers and developers to leverage disparate datasets to train their algorithms. But gaining access to a sufficient amount of data is not a straight-forward endeavor, given that data is often owned by organizations or individuals that might not want third-parties to have access to their data. Or, they may only make said data available under a commercial license, making it prohibitively expensive to harness.

An artificial intelligence tool called ChatGPT averaged a C-plus on exams at the University of Minnesota Law School, according to four law professors who gave it a try. The law professors used ChatGPT to answer the questions and then blindly graded the answers, along with answers by real students, report Reuters and Insider. The average C-plus grade was still below that of law students, who had a B-plus average. And ChatGPT's performance, while earning passing grades, was at or near the bottom of the class. The professors' findings are available here.

This course focuses on the theme of "protection and sustainable utilization of oceans and marine resources to promote sustainable development". The course adopts a combination of theory and practice to introduce related technologies and typical applications of ocean intelligent autonomous monitoring. Typically, the course includes unmanned surface vehicle(USV),unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV), autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV), and related algorithms for data processing. Students are awarded 2cr for completing the course. Students from all study programs are welcome, and thus no formal requirements are set.

In brief Joshua Browder, CEO of DoNotPay, made headlines for claiming an AI chatbot was due to defend a man in an upcoming court hearing, but has pulled out of the stunt. Browder runs a consumer rights startup that was originally built to help people appeal parking tickets more easily, and has since grown with the aim of building "the world's first robot lawyer." He wanted to show AI could replace expensive human lawyers, using language models to form legal arguments. Earlier this month he claimed to have convinced a man to wear headphones during a court case and recite the output of an AI chatbot in a court hearing scheduled to take place over Zoom. But his behavior caught the attention of prosecutors irked by his reckless antics.