Fri 13 Sep 2019 17.00 BST Last modified on Fri 13 Sep 2019 17.00 BST The world's most famous whistleblower, Edward Snowden, says he has detected a softening in public hostility towards him in the US over his disclosure of top-secret documents that revealed the extent of the global surveillance programmes run by American and British spy agencies. In an exclusive two-hour interview in Moscow to mark the publication of his memoirs, Permanent Record, Snowden said dire warnings that his disclosures would cause harm had not come to pass, and even former critics now conceded "we live in a better, freer and safer world" because of his revelations. In the book, Snowden describes in detail for the first time his background, and what led him to leak details of the secret programmes being run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's secret communication headquarters, GCHQ. He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction, with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars". Snowden also said: "The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition. "An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer to an automated police officer." He is concerned the US and other governments, aided by the big internet companies, are moving towards creating a permanent record of everyone on earth, recording the whole of their daily lives. While Snowden feels justified in what he did six years ago, he told the Guardian he was reconciled to being in Russia for years to come and was planning for his future on that basis. He reveals he secretly married his partner, Lindsay Mills, two years ago in a Russian courthouse. While he would rather be in the US or somewhere like Germany, he is relaxed in Russia, now able to lead a more or less normal daily life. He is less fearful than when he first arrived in 2013, when he felt lonely, isolated and paranoid that he could be targeted in the streets by US agents seeking retribution. "I was very much a person the most powerful government in the world wanted to go away.

Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTCPINK: GTCH) ("GBT", or the "Company"), a company specializing in the development of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled networking and tracking technologies, including its GopherInsight global mesh network technology platform for both mobile and fixed solutions, today announced that GBT Technologies, S.A., a Costa Rican company ("GBT CR"), has completed its written design of the deep nanometer range 3D microchip patent, clearing the way for GBT to file for international protection (PCT) for the patent. The application has been assigned serial number PCT/US19/50266 and the international filing date is September 10, 2019. This microchip is targeted for GBT's planned future chipset and derivative integrated circuits. The technology is based on a new concept for a microchip's die structure and orientation and is specifically designed for deep nanometer range. It is designed to work with Digital, Analog and Mixed technologies to achieve much higher performance and die yield.

Jimmy Gomez is a California Democrat, a Harvard graduate and one of the few Hispanic lawmakers serving in the US House of Representatives. But to Amazon's facial recognition system, he looks like a potential criminal. Gomez was one of 28 US Congress members falsely matched with mugshots of people who've been arrested, as part of a test the American Civil Liberties Union ran last year of the Amazon Rekognition program. Nearly 40 percent of the false matches by Amazon's tool, which is being used by police, involved people of color. This is part of a CNET special report exploring the benefits and pitfalls of facial recognition.

In December 2018, a man driving an authorized Uber vehicle picked up an intoxicated woman leaving a Christmas party -- and then brought her to his home and raped her. But the man, who The Age reports was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on Wednesday, was not an authorized Uber driver. Rather, he was able to easily fool Uber's verification system by holding up a photo of a real driver. In other words, the AI technology that Uber uses to verify that its drivers are who they claim to be -- like Amazon delivery drivers, Uber contractors take a selfie when signing on -- wasn't sophisticated enough to spot a printed headshot. It's a horrifying story that illustrates the perils of big tech offloading security to dodgy AI systems. Uber told Business Insider that it deployed a fix in response to the December incident.

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW ADDRESS OF MORSE BARNES-BROWN & PENDLETON at 480 Totten Pond Road. Artificial intelligence technologies are threatening to take over many decision-making tasks humans perform at work and in personal life. AI systems are already making critical decisions in areas previously thought to be the exclusive domain of humans: driving cars, reviewing job applications, underwriting loans, and even endeavoring to create patentable innovation and recommending sentencing in the criminal justice system. What does this rapid and seemingly unstoppable development in artificial intelligence mean for the legal profession? In his talk, Joe Barkai will provide an overview of key AI technologies.

IBM earned a record 9,100 U.S. patents in 2018, marking the 26th year in a row the Armonk, New York-based company has been the top recipient. Samsung was second with 5,850 patents while tech giants Apple and Microsoft also appeared in the top ten, according to a list compiled by research service IFI Claims. IBM's latest patent haul, which topped the 9,043 it received last year, includes a growing number of inventions related to artificial intelligence and quantum computing, which many people see as critical technologies of the future. Google, which came in at number seven on last year's list, did not crack the top ten patent recipients for 2018. Meanwhile, Apple rose to ninth from eleventh.

On September 10, 2019, Cravath partner Katherine B. Forrest, former U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, conducted a webcast for Celesq entitled "Artificial Intelligence and Criminal Justice: Constitutional Issues." Katherine addressed the use of AI in the criminal justice system and the constitutional questions that arise from it, including Fourth Amendment, Sixth Amendment and due process issues.

As part of the government-funded national initiative AI Competence for Sweden, Umeå University is developing and giving a course on ethical, legal, social, economic and cultural aspects on AI, corresponding to 2 ECTs. This course is conceived as a two-day interdisciplinary discussion forum about the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems on human behaviour and the related ethical, legal, social, economic and cultural issues (ELSEC), combined with assignments to be conducted besides attending the two days. The course is aimed in its first edition at providing a ground for a continued discussion and development of AI-related contents of education and research at Umeå University across faculties, and at providing a ground for collaboration with industry and public organisations on digital innovation and development that include responsible AI. The course and home assignments will be followed up at a later date in conjunction with an open workshop on AI education and research on the ELSEC-theme. Artificial Intelligence (AI), both embedded in systems or embodied in artifacts (e.g robots), is increasingly everywhere.

September 13, 2019: Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) applications, be they noninvasive (positioned on the body) or invasive (inserted into the body) significantly amplify the liability concerns that we are already familiar with through experience with, for example, implantable medical devices. The liability amplifying variable here is capability: the BMI's potential to cause wide-ranging harm is far greater than a legacy medical device. For instance, injecting a virus carrying nanobots to fight a disease or to carry out another mission is vastly different and carries an intrinsic operational risk that is vastly greater than implanting a pacemaker. Iterative liability, XAI, and the regulation of AI discussed in this post coalesce into a normative and legal safety net that can help mitigate the risks associated with BMI. July 19, 2019: Regulating AI behavior is necessary in order to mitigate harm.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe representing its 47 members states has decided to set up an intergovernmental committee of experts to examine the feasibility of a legal framework for the development, design, and application of artificial intelligence (AI). To carry out its work, the Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI) will take into account the standards of the Council of Europe in the fields of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law and carry out broad multi-stakeholder consultations. Meeting in Helsinki on 17 May 2019, the Foreign Affairs of the Council of Europe member states had agreed that the fast development of artificial intelligence made it necessary for the organization to explore the feasibility and potential content of a legal framework addressing the challenges it creates for human rights, the rule of law, and democracy.