An Apple employee suspected of stealing trade secrets faces 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 after the company reportedly found their intellectual property on his personal hard drive. Jizhong Chen is the second Chinese national working on their autonomous project to be accused of the crime in six months, after Xiaolang Zhang was arrested by FBI last July. Now electrical engineer Chen is in hot water after Apple Global Security allegedly discovered'over two thousand files containing confidential and proprietary Apple material, including manuals, schematics, and diagrams' about Project Titan. Materials allegedly found on his device include an'assembly drawing of an Apple-designed wiring harness for an autonomous vehicle' as part of their Project Titan Approximately one hundred photographs taken from within the California Apple building and containing information on the driverless car project were allegedly stored on his computer. Employees said he allowed them to search his device after a fellow worker caught Chen taking pictures in an area that was deemed sensitive, NBC Bay Area reported.

Our new HRBDT report on'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: Putting Human Rights at the Heart of the Design, Development and Deployment of Artificial Intelligence' assesses how human rights are affected by big data and artificial intelligence. It recommends that states and businesses apply a human rights-based approach to existing and future applications, policies, strategies and regulation of these technologies in order to effectively respond to the potential and challenges to human rights posed by artificial intelligence.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Technology Trends report, 50 per cent of all patents for AI – the replication of human intelligence by machines for use in industries such as transport and healthcare, for instance – have been published since 2013, adding up to more than 170,000 different patented ideas. This followed on from an initial boom in AI scientific publications, which began in 2001. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry told journalists in Geneva the surge in patenting was "striking", noting that AI research began in the 1950s. "But there has been a quantum leap since about 2013, so we're dealing with what is happening right now in a very fast-moving field," he insisted. By number, patent applications for machine learning, indicate that this is currently the dominant application of AI; think of apps that include ride-sharing services to minimize detours.

If a local tech industry critic has his way, San Francisco could become the first US city to ban its agencies from using facial recognition technology. Aaron Peskin, a member of the city's Board of Supervisors, proposed the ban Tuesday as part of a suite of rules to enhance surveillance oversight. In addition to the ban on facial recognition technology, the ordinance would require city agencies to gain the board's approval before buying new surveillance technology, putting the burden on city agencies to publicly explain why they want the tools as well as the potential harms. It would also require an audit of any existing surveillance tech--things like gunshot-detection systems, surveillance cameras, or automatic license plate readers--in use by the city; officials would have to report annually on how the technology was used, community complaints, and with whom they share the data. Those rules would follow similar ordinances passed in nearby Oakland and Santa Clara County.

China and the United States are ahead of the global competition to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study by the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published on Thursday. The research found tech giant IBM had by far the biggest AI patent portfolio with 8,920 patents, ahead of Microsoft with 5,930, and a group of mainly Japanese tech conglomerates. China accounted for 17 of the top 20 academic institutions involved in patenting AI and was particularly strong in the fast-growing area of "deep learning" - a machine-learning technique that includes speech recognition systems. "The US and China obviously have stolen a lead. They're out in front in this area in terms of numbers of applications and in scientific publications," WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry told a news conference.

Artificial intelligence is emerging as the driving force behind many advancements in technology, even though the industry has merely scratched the surface of what may be possible. But how deeply AI penetrates different market segments and technologies, and how quickly it pushes into the mainstream, depend on a variety of issues that still must be resolved. In addition to a plethora of technical issues, there needs to be progress in sanitizing data sets, resolving political, legal and ethical issues, and instilling trust in machines. None of these challenges is insurmountable, but a failure to deal with any of them will could delay the adoption of AI and slow or prevent it from reaching its full potential. Data cleaning AI applications start with large data sets. If the data is bad, the application is bad.

The U.N.'s intellectual property organization says companies in Japan, South Korea and the United States are among the top filers of patent applications for artificial intelligence.

Allianz Insurance has rolled out its latest artificial intelligence (AI)-based digital solution that allows its injury claims handlers to automate Ministry of Justice Stage 3 claims at a single click. The new system, dubbed Defendant Hub, has been developed in collaboration with UK law firm Keoghs. The digital solution provides Allianz's injury claims handlers with an end-to-end solution for Stage 3 claims. Ministry of Justice Stage 3 claims represent the phase of the process where legal proceedings may be issued in case the parties cannot agree how much a claim is worth. The new system will eliminate the manual feeding of data and generate a response.

The automation of measurement and data collection procedures, coupled with the development of vast capacity for data storage and the creation of highly sophisticated tools for analyzing and processing data, often in real time, is radically changing the world in which we live. This has prompted considerable debate, both philosophical and legal, about the right, legitimate, and proper ways to use such data. Also, since there is no absolute authority to whom we can appeal for guidance, it is important that we, the data creators, suppliers, and users, should engage with these ethical considerations. Emphasis naturally tends to be on the side of risk and protection, but we must always bear in mind the need for a proper balance between risk and benefit. Zero risk can be attained only at the cost of zero benefit, but the potential benefit from new data technologies is vast. Or, as leading data ethicists Floridi and Taddeo1 put it: "On the one hand, overlooking ethical issues may prompt ...

Apple is grappling with another employee accused of stealing autonomous vehicle trade secrets. NBC News has learned that the FBI arrested Jizhong Chen for allegedly trying to swipe self-driving car tech and pass it along to a Chinese competitor. After an employee saw him taking photos in a sensitive work area, the company conducted an investigation that discovered thousands of sensitive documents on his personal computer, including roughly a hundred photos from inside an Apple building. They also found that he'd recently applied to work at that competitor. Agents arrested Chen a mere day before he was supposed to fly to China, according to a criminal complaint.