Pics Images generated by AI have always been pretty easy to spot since they are always slightly odd to the human eye, but it's getting harder to differentiate what's real and fake. Researchers from DeepMind and Heriot-Watt University in the UK have managed to significantly boost the quality of images simulated by a generative adversarial network (GAN) by increasing the size of the machine learning model, which they dubbed BigGANs. The best results, including pictures of a brown dog with floppy ears, a island landscape, a butterfly, and a cheeseburger, look like real photos at first glance. Keep staring, however, and you will begin to see some slight inconsistencies. The dog's eyes are glazed over and there is a weird patch that doesn't belong to the butterfly's wing.

Debates about rights are frequently framed around the concept of legal personhood, which is granted not just to human beings but also to some nonhuman entities, such as firms, corporations or governments. Legal entities, aka legal persons are granted certain privileges and responsibilities by the jurisdictions in which they are recognized, and many such rights are not available to nonperson agents. Attempting to secure legal personhood is often seen as a potential pathway to get certain rights and protections for animals [1], fetuses [2], trees, rivers [3] and artificially intelligent (AI) agents [4]. It is commonly believed that a court ruling or a legislative action is necessary to grant personhood to a new type of entity, but recent legal literature [5-8] suggests that loopholes in the current law may permit granting of legal personhood to currently existing AI/software without having to change the law or persuade any court.

Dating apps that allow users to filter their searches by race - or rely on algorithms that pair up people of the same race - reinforce racial divisions and biases, according to a new paper by Cornell University researchers. Researchers called for the apps to be redesigned, and for'racist' algorithms should be reprogrammed. Experts say that amid the huge rise in the usage of dating apps are meaning people are failing to meet diverse potential partners. Cornell researchers called for the apps to be redesigned, and for'racist' algorithms should be reprogrammed. The paper revealed how simple design decisions could decrease bias against people of all marginalized groups.

Watch the premiere episode of The Dr. Data Show, which answers the question, "What makes machine learning the coolest science?" This new web series breaks the mold for data science infotainment, captivating the planet with short webisodes that cover very best of machine learning and predictive analytics. Click here for more information and to sign up for future episodes of The Dr. Data Show Please note that viewing the video (above) is recommended, since it includes complementary visuals. Also, certain vocal inflections and gesticulations hold meaning. Some of the intented meaning is lost by reading this transcript rather watching the video.

Good judgement and skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, creativity and wisdom will become even more important to lawyering as the use of artificial intelligence increases, says UNSW Professor of Law Michael Legg. The director of the Law Society of NSW Future of Law and Innovation in the Profession (FLIP) stream at UNSW Law discussed what an AI-enhanced lawyer looks like at the Law Society's FLIP Conference in Sydney this month. "Whatever the nature of their practice, it has been said that the most important skill of lawyering is sound judgement," Professor Legg said. "Sound judgement is about more than answering legal questions – it encapsulates the relational and contextual elements of being a'problem-solving' lawyer. "None of the AI technologies currently available have the capacity to completely replace lawyers, as each still requires the exercise of human judgement as part of the process." The talk was part of a collaboration on research between UNSW Law and the NSW Law Society, which is responding to issues such as legal technology and new ways of working raised by the NSW Law Society's FLIP report in 2016. The report recognised that the legal profession is undergoing change at a pace never before experienced and in unforeseen ways, which has major ramifications for the legal profession, clients and society, particularly in relation to access to justice. FLIP Stream Research Fellow Dr Felicity Bell showed research by Israel-based contract review platform LawGeex, which compared the efforts of 20 "experienced" lawyers in reviewing five different non-disclosure agreements, with those of its software. The lawyers took, on average, 92 minutes to review all five contracts, while the software took a mere 26 seconds. "The software outperformed the lawyers in terms of accuracy, and vastly outperformed them in terms of speed," she said. "The lawyers took, on average, 92 minutes to review all five contracts, while the software took a mere 26 seconds.

You lock your phone so other people can't access it. But how you lock your phone is an important factor in whether law enforcement can compel you to unlock it. Apple's year-old Face ID system is no exception. On Sunday, Forbes reported the first known example of law enforcement anywhere using a suspect's face to unlock a phone during an investigation. The question of whether cops can force someone to unlock their phone in the US for a search hinges on Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination--that no one "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against" themselves. Privacy advocates argue that this extends to the act of unlocking a phone, or generally decrypting data on a device.

Artificial intelligence has moved into the world of corporate legal matters: A Tokyo-based start-up founded by young lawyers is using AI to check for omissions and mistakes in contracts, sometimes taking only one second. There have been calls lately for greater legal compliance, and the service is drawing attention over whether it can help streamline corporate legal practices. LegalForce Inc. was established in April last year, and is led by 31-year-old lawyer Nozomu Tsunoda, who quit a leading law firm to go into business for himself. Even with only seven employees, LegalForce checks contract documents such as a confidentiality agreement between companies. The service uses AI to automatically check such things as provisions or phrasing that could be detrimental to a company, as well as omissions or incomplete elements.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said he had asked Andrew Tyrie, the head of the Competition and Markets Authority, to advise him on regulatory changes to tackle the problem. He said that there were already signs that companies had used personal data to exploit customers by, for example, targeting the elderly or those who fail to shop around. Energy groups were signalled out as one group that effectively applied a "loyalty penalty" to faithful customers. Other examples include splitting up families on flights if they fail to pay extra to book seating next to one another or loyal energy consumers who are charged more if they do not switch supplier regularly. Citizens Advice estimated that the tactics may generate around £4bn a year.

UPDATE: Check out below where Lexis outlines some issues they have with the quality of the results. The language around the technology has softened from the height of its hype cycle, but there's still a sense out there that AI is this "thing." As one legal tech leader put it to me last year, "a lot of lawyers act like'we need to get some AI' without trying to figure out how AI solutions might be different." To some extent, that still holds sway. It's a conclusion that's not entirely off base because some solutions use the same underlying AI algorithms.

In today's world, data is the new basis of competitive advantage – and businesses are paying close attention to how they use their data, especially highly-regulated customer information. While the goal is to extract insights and knowledge for better decision making, organizations must also ensure they are abiding by the legal and data privacy requirements. This process can be time-intensive for legal professionals, who must stay on top of ever-changing laws, often across multiple global jurisdictions. And there is a lot at stake, with noncompliance resulting in increasingly higher fines and substantial risk to a business' reputation. In the US alone, there are more than 70 government authorities with a legal point of view on data privacy, from states and state agencies, to congress and federal agencies, including the US Attorney General, Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.