As a PhD student focused on AI, it's been hard to figure out how to keep up with it all. So, over the past few years I've sought out and subscribed to a ton of newsletters that help me do that. In this piece i'll share what I consider to be the best currently active newsletters, with a bit of commentary on why I think they are good. My criteria are that these newsletters are still active, have at least a semi-consistent release schedule, focus on AI news (as opposed to data science and the like), are newsletters (as opposed to blogs), and are high quality (according to me). They are presented in rough order of preference and are grouped by whether they cover non technical news, AI research, or both.

The emergence of artificial intelligence-related technology as a means of innovation has led to uncertainties for companies across industries, primarily because patent law has historically held that intellectual property rights be assigned only to humans. Now, in a landmark decision, an Australian court has set a groundbreaking precedent, deciding AI systems can be legally recognised as an inventor in patent applications, challenging a fundamental assumption in the law: that only human beings can be inventors. The AI machine called DABUS is an "artificial neural system" and its designs have set off a string of debates and court battles across the globe. Australia's Federal Court has now made the new law that "the inventor can be non-human" in the same month that South Africa became the first country to defy the status quo and award a patent recognising DABUS as an inventor. AI inventor and creator of DABUS, Stephen Thaler has been running a sutained global campaign to have DABUS recognised as an inventor for more than two years.

Refugee rights are cosmological, binding, blended, co-dependent, and interconnected and constitute the basic structure of international custom [BASIC] encapsulating the national jurisdictions across the world. BASIC thrives on dignity; therefore, the word "refugee rights" can be delineated and defined in a single word–as per my understanding–called "dignity," as it is the issue of human dignity that we address in refugee rights. Therefore, refugee rights mean dignity, but the same has been further convoluted with the ascendance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has presented new challenges to human equality in all walks of life. AI has reduced humanity in algorithmic calculations contrary to global human rights norms. AI does not recognize the significance of humanitarianism in its current form. It has envisioned a world of dynamic numerals that do not protect humanity and mitigate human sufferings in the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) procedures.

MIT SMR Connections is the custom content creation unit within MIT Sloan Management Review. For years, organizations have been using artificial intelligence to automate manual tasks and improve products and services. But as real-world use cases for AI multiply, so too do the ethical implications of simulating human intelligence in machines. Today, AI-powered chatbots help to screen job candidates, facial recognition systems keep workplaces safe from intruders, and sophisticated AI algorithms predict market trends and emerging customer demands. These examples deliver benefits ranging from increased productivity and employee well-being to competitive gains.

In this photo illustration Facebook logo can be seen, Kolkata, India, 28 February, 2020. Facebook ... [ ] Inc on Thursday announced its decision to cancel its annual developer conference due to Coronavirus outbreak according a news media report. Some crisis situations are caused by what people say or do. On occasion, a crisis--or an embarrassing incident--is caused by technology. The New York Times reported yesterday that, "Facebook users who recently watched a video from a British tabloid featuring Black men saw an automated prompt from the social network that asked if they would like to'keep seeing videos about Primates', causing the company to investigate and disable the artificial intelligence-powered feature that pushed the message. "This was clearly an unacceptable error and we disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again," Facebook spokeswoman Dani Lever said in a statement to USA Today. "As we have said, while we have made improvements to our AI, we know it's not perfect and we have more progress to make," she said. "We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations." This is not the first time that advanced technology has created an embarrassing situation for an organization. The Washington Post reported yesterday that "a judge ruled that Apple will have to continue fighting a lawsuit brought by users in federal court in California, alleging that the company's voice assistant Siri has improperly recorded private conversations." Last week at the Paralympics in Tokyo, Toyota self-driving pods injured a pedestrian. Reuters reported that, "In a YouTube video, Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda apologized for the incident and said he offered to meet the person but was unable to do so.

A computer using artificial intelligence can't be listed as an inventor on patents because only a human can be an inventor under U.S. law, a federal judge ruled in the first American decision that's part of a global debate over how to handle computer-created innovation. Federal law requires that an "individual" take an oath that he or she is the inventor on a patent application, and both the dictionary and legal definition of an individual is a natural person, ruled U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia.

The previous post on "Technology Regulation: Risk-based approaches to Artificial Intelligence governance, Part I" discussed recent advancements in AI technologies that have led to new commercial applications with potentially adverse social implications. We also considered the challenges of AI governance and discussed the role of technical benchmarks for evaluating AI systems. In this post, we will explore the different AI risk assessment approaches that can underpin AI regulation. This post will conclude with a discussion on the next steps for national AI governance initiatives. Risk assessments can help identify the AI systems that need to be regulated.

I've never been one for hyperbolic talk about artificial intelligence. While I do think it presents an existential threat to some lawyer jobs -- specifically those doing low-skill tasks as part of Biglaw behemoths -- when a company told me several years ago that they would license AI based off the brains of famous attorneys within the decade I went right ahead and laughed. The point is, AI is a tool, and a very powerful one, that you're using all the time without even thinking about it. It's why midway through this article, Google is likely showing you an ad for the thing you researched buying last night. So it surprised me the other day when I found myself musing that AI is driving us to the point where long accepted tenets of law might need rethinking.

A U.S. judge has ruled that artificial intelligence can't get a patent for its creations, ruling that such a privilege is reserved for people. District court judge Leonie Brinkema backed a decision by the U.S. patent office to turn away applications made on behalf of a "creativity machine" named DABUS. Brinkema issued a ruling saying that "the clear answer is'no'" to the question of whether an AI machine qualifies as an inventor under patent law. "As technology evolves, there may come a time when artificial intelligence reaches a level of sophistication that might satisfy accepted meanings of inventorship," Brinkema said in the ruling. "But that time has not yet arrived and, if it does, it will be up to Congress to decide how, if at all, it wants to expand the scope of patent law."

Should an artificially intelligent machine be able to patent its own inventions? For a US federal judge, the larger implications of that question were irrelevant. In April 2020, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled that only "natural persons" could be credited as the inventor of a patent, and a US court decided Thursday that yes, that's what the law technically says (via Bloomberg). Not every country agrees with that direction. South Africa and Australia decided to go the other direction, granting one patent and reinstating a second patent application filed by AI researcher Steven Thaler, whose AI system DABUS reportedly came up with a flashing light and a new type of food container.