Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, speaks about artificial intelligence during a Bruegel think tank conference in Brussels, Belgium, on Jan. 20, 2020. The chief executive of Google parent company Alphabet on Monday backed an EU proposal to temporarily ban facial-recognition technology because of the possibility that it could be used for nefarious purposes. "I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and gives a framework for it," Sundar Pichai told a conference in Brussels organized by think tank Bruegel. The European Commission, which acts as the EU executive, is taking a tougher line on artificial intelligence (AI) than the United States that would strengthen existing regulations on privacy and data rights, according to an 18-page proposal paper seen by Reuters. Part of this includes a moratorium of up to five years on using facial recognition technology in public areas, to give the EU time to work out how to prevent abuses, the paper said.

The time has come for lawmakers to settle this debate before it's too late. The thumb rule is never to reproduce works of any writer or artist without permission and/or payment of royalty/fees. Here's an example: developers use Y platform to make a phone app, and then sell it in the market for a fee. The debate so far: AI is being used to write articles, news reports; generate works of art, music even. The opposition counterargues that till such time that a machine can think "creatively" on its own, without human intervention, a human being IS responsible for creating the data base.

The chief executive of Google has called for international cooperation on regulating artificial intelligence technology to ensure it is'harnessed for good'. Sundar Pichai said that while regulation by individual governments and existing rules such as GDPR can provide a'strong foundation' for the regulation of AI, a more coordinated international effort is'critical' to making global standards work. The CEO said that history is full of examples of how'technology's virtues aren't guaranteed' and that with technological innovations come side effects. These range from internal combustion engines, which allowed people to travel beyond their own areas but also caused more accidents, to the internet, which helped people connect but also made it easier for misinformation to spread. These lessons teach us'we need to be clear-eyed about what could go wrong' in the development of AI-based technologies, he said.

Algorithms are already amongst us to a great extent. Some of them taking important decisions such as helping in the judiciary system to determine potential for recidivism, supporting decisions to renew or not a loan, or in which shares to invest our money, and even diagnosing whether our cell samples are malign or not, which determines the treatment we receive and the insurance we are offered. While their use has great potential to help us become more accurate and reach better decisions, they come with a series of problems including privacy issues, risk of bias, error, accountability questions and lack of transparency. The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence depends on trust. And we can only deem an algorithm trustworthy if we understand how it is reaching its decisions if we understand how it works.

The impact of the development of computer science on the knowledge of law is phenomenal and fundamental. Yet, few lawyers have the expertise to understand the impact of new algorithmic methods in their practice. The objectives of the training are twofold: the first is to transfer knowledge and skills in this high-tech sector, while the second is to provide technical training to lawyers. The university degree "Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property" has, on the one hand, a goal to remedy this lack in the field of intellectual property rights. Indeed, if there are many training courses on the digital and the law, none sufficiently understates the new issues of artificial intelligence in the field of intellectual property rights, in order to understand and control the issues of protection of these new types of creation, their usefulness to the implementation of rights, as well as their technical and economic environment.

Data science consultant Cathy O'Neil helps companies audit their algorithms for a living. And when it comes to how algorithms and artificial intelligence can enable bias in the job hiring process, she said the biggest issue isn't even with the employers themselves. A new Illinois law that aims to help job seekers understand how AI tools are used to evaluate them in video interviews recently resurfaced the debate over AI's role in recruiting. But O'Neil believes the law tries to tackle bias too late in the process. "The problem actually lies before the application comes in. The problem lies in the pipeline to match job seekers with jobs," said O'Neil, founder and CEO of O'Neil Risk Consulting & Algorithmic Auditing.

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Dr David Levy, an expert on artificial intelligence (AI), said in an interview with the Daily Star that the way technology is developing nowadays, the world might soon face a serious challenge from AI-equipped robots of all types. Levy complained that governments are acting too slowly when it comes to introducing new laws and addressing the new challenge, recalling how the Dutch Ministry of Defence had ignored his warnings regarding the potentially malign use of drones and, less than a year later, simple drones were able to paralyse the work of Gatwick Airport in the UK during Christmas season. The AI expert argues that in order to draw more attention to the problem, a "Greta Thunberg of the robot world" is needed, adding that dangerous robots are likely to harm humanity sooner than climate change. Thunberg, a famous teenage environmental activist, rose to prominence globally in recent years by rallying students around the world to take part in her "strikes for climate", which are designed to draw attention to ecological problems. She also made an appearance at a UN committee devoted to the topic, delivering a passionate speech in which she accused global leaders of doing too little to address climate change.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it dozens of times: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." When it comes to its corporate acquisitions, Cupertino likes to play its cards very close to its chest. Of course, that doesn't stop industry watchers from peering at the tea leaves to see if they can divine exactly what the company might be working on. And, hey, I'm no different than those folks, because Apple does so little to telegraph its plans that even a boilerplate statement confirming an acquisition is a rare peek behind the curtain. Apple CEO Tim Cook said not long ago that the company makes an acquisition every two to three weeks, and not even all of those make it into the public eye.

The legal sector is quickly moving to embrace digital transformation and leaning towards innovation as it recognises the opportunity to improve customer services, drive productivity and adhere to the raft of compliance checks that all law firms have to meet. In fact, in feedback from legal professionals in our recent Advanced Trends Survey Report 2019/2020, only 40 per cent felt their law firm wasn't acting fast enough to keep up with the pace of technology innovation – so that means 60 per cent are acting with pace and are certainly well ahead on that journey. To encourage greater innovation, one technology that we predict will have a transformative effect on the industry is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although AI is still in its relative infancy, it is already helping to change the way many industries operate and the legal sector is increasingly recognising its potential benefits. For example, a recent Deloitte study estimated 100,000 legal roles will be automated by 2036, leaving legal professionals to concentrate on higher value, client facing tasks.