Where machine-learned predictive risk scores inform high-stakes decisions, such as bail and sentencing in criminal justice, fairness has been a serious concern. Recent work has characterized the disparate impact that such risk scores can have when used for a binary classification task and provided tools to audit and adjust resulting classifiers. This may not account, however, for the more diverse downstream uses of risk scores and their non-binary nature. To better account for this, in this paper, we investigate the fairness of predictive risk scores from the point of view of a bipartite ranking task, where one seeks to rank positive examples higher than negative ones. We introduce the xAUC disparity as a metric to assess the disparate impact of risk scores and define it as the difference in the probabilities of ranking a random positive example from one protected group above a negative one from another group and vice versa. We provide a decomposition of bipartite ranking loss into components that involve the discrepancy and components that involve pure predictive ability within each group. We further provide an interpretation of the xAUC discrepancy in terms of resource allocation fairness and make connections to existing fairness metrics and adjustments. We assess xAUC empirically on datasets in recidivism prediction, income prediction, and cardiac arrest prediction, where it describes disparities that are not evident from simply comparing within-group predictive performance.

There is widespread public support for a ban on so-called "killer robots", which campaigners say would "cross a moral line" after which it would be difficult to return. Polling across 26 countries found over 60 per cent of the thousands asked opposed lethal autonomous weapons that can kill with no human input, and only around a fifth backed them. The figures showed public support was growing for a treaty to regulate these controversial new technologies - a treaty which is already being pushed by campaigners, scientists and many world leaders. However, a meeting in Geneva at the close of last year ended in a stalemate after nations including the US and Russia indicated they would not support the creation of such a global agreement. Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, who coordinates the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, compared the movement to successful efforts to eradicate landmines from battlefields.

Microsoft and Google have been among the leaders in development of artificial intelligence solutions. Both companies say AI is a major part of their future endeavors and will boost revenue through streamlining services. However, both Microsoft and Google admit AI could also cause harm to their business if something goes wrong. Both companies made the declaration in 10-K forms discovered by Wired. Created for investors, the documents give an overview of business and finance performance.

In May of 2010, prompted by a series of high-profile scandals, the mayor of New Orleans asked the US Department of Justice to investigate the city police department (NOPD). Ten months later, the DOJ offered its blistering analysis: during the period of its review from 2005 onwards, the NOPD had repeatedly violated constitutional and federal law. It used excessive force, and disproportionately against black residents; targeted racial minorities, non-native English speakers, and LGBTQ individuals; and failed to address violence against women. The problems, said assistant attorney general Thomas Perez at the time, were "serious, wide-ranging, systemic and deeply rooted within the culture of the department." Despite the disturbing findings, the city entered a secret partnership only a year later with data-mining firm Palantir to deploy a predictive policing system.

A new report for Seal Software sheds light on how companies' legal departments are preparing for or using the latest tools associated with artificial …

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is largely an experimental science—at least as much progress has been made by building and analyzing programs as by examining theoretical questions. MYCIN is one of several well-known programs that embody some intelligence and provide data on the extent to which intelligent behavior can be programmed. As with other AI programs, its development was slow and not always in a forward direction. But we feel we learned some useful lessons in the course of nearly a decade of work on MYCIN and related programs. In this book we share the results of many experiments performed in that time, and we try to paint a coherent picture of the work. The book is intended to be a critical analysis of several pieces of related research, performed by a large number of scientists. We believe that the whole field of AI will benefit from such attempts to take a detailed retrospective look at experiments, for in this way the scientific foundations of the field will gradually be defined. It is for all these reasons that we have prepared this analysis of the MYCIN experiments.

The creator of the hugely popular video game Fortnite has urged a judge to throw out a lawsuit by the rapper 2 Milly, who claims a viral dance move he created was used in the game without his consent. The lawsuit centres around the'Swipe It' dance emote that can be obtained as a reward in the online Battle Royale game. Plaintiff Terrence Milly, who goes by the name 2 Milly, argues that the dance move is based on a choreography he created in 2014 called the Milly Rock. Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

The Federal Trade Commission is celebrating Valentine's Day by reminding people to not get scammed when looking for love. The agency received more than 21,000 reports about romance scams in 2018 with total reported losses of $143 million. Of those who said they lost money in a romance scam, the median amount lost was $2,600 -- seven times more than the median loss for other types of frauds tracked by the FTC. Romance scammers often use online dating sites and create fake profiles or use a real person's identity, the FTC says. Scammers also cultivate targets on Facebook and social media sites not specifically designed for dating.

Over the last several months, researchers have shown that computer systems can learn the vagaries of language in general ways and then apply what they have learned to a variety of specific tasks. Built in quick succession by several independent research organizations, including Google and the Allen Institute, these systems could improve technology as diverse as digital assistants like Alexa and Google Home as well as software that automatically analyzes documents inside law firms, hospitals, banks and other businesses. "Each time we build new ways of doing something close to human level, it allows us to automate or augment human labor," said Jeremy Howard, the founder of Fast.ai, an independent lab based in San Francisco that is among those at the forefront of this research. "This can make life easier for a lawyer or a paralegal. But it can also help with medicine." It may even lead to technology that can -- finally -- carry on a decent conversation.