Their argument is essentially, "If everyone else is doing the same thing in their respective areas, why should we be the ones to start to change?" Consequently, the situation has become chronic, and no solution is reached. Not even some of the most important public agencies that fund this kind of research in the United States take this requirement seriously. Even authors of academic or commercial studies that use data on health, find ways to get around administrative restrictions such as those imposed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and other regulatory legislation. The complaints of Kalev Leetaru--who has worked for Yahoo!, Google, Georgetown University, and the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government--are applicable to technicians and managers of various related activities: big data, data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, etc. At the head of these activities are professionals who come from disciplines such as information technology, who, due to their experience and position, are more accustomed to answering questions than to asking them, Leetaru says.

After an eight-year-long absence from the most populated country in the world, Google search is going to dramatically make a comeback in China. Google is reportedly planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that is going to blacklist certain websites and search terms to comply with Chinese government's attempts to censor the Internet, a whistleblower revealed. According to leaked documents obtained by The Intercept, CEO Sundar Pichai met with a Chinese government official in December 2017 to re-enter the world's largest market for internet users. Project Dragonfly -- Censored Google Search Engine Since spring last year Google engineers have been secretly working on a project, dubbed "Dragonfly," which currently includes two Android mobile apps named--Maotai and Longfei--one of which will get launched by the end of this year after Chinese officials approve it. The censored version of Google search engine in the form of a mobile app reportedly aims to "blacklist sensitive queries" and filter out all websites (news, human rights, democracy, religion) blocked by the Chinese government, including Wikipedia, BBC News, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Google refused to confirm if it's truly been developing a censored search engine for China after reports about the project's existence came out, but it might soon have no choice but to come clean. A group of six Democratic and Republican Senators led by Marco Rubio has penned a letter addressed to Google chief Sundar Pichai demanding concrete answers. They want to know once and for all whether the tech giant is conjuring up a version of its search engine that'll work behind the Great Firewall. The Senators called the move "deeply troubling" if true, pointing out that that it "risks making Google complicit in human rights abuses related to China's rigorous censorship regime." While the company has yet to confirm the project (reportedly called "Dragonfly"), it's easy to see why the Senators would be concerned.

On Saturday, as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave a speech in Caracas before a large military assemblage, drones carrying explosives approached, detonating near the stage. While Maduro was unharmed, Venezuelan information minister Jorge Rodriguez said that the attack injured seven soldiers. It's a method of assault that only a few years ago felt unthinkable, but has quickly become inevitable. Details remain scarce about the exact nature of the attack, which Rodriguez characterized as an "assassination attempt," including what type of drones were used and the nature of the explosives involved. In a televised address to his country, Maduro appeared to attribute the strike to far-right factions in Venezuela and Columbia.

If you've been working toward General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance over the last couple of years, you are probably feeling like your data compliance environment is in good shape. You've identified what information exists, where it is and how it flows, and in the best-case scenario, you're eliminating data silos that otherwise hamper end-to-end compliance processes. While improving these processes will continue to be a top priority, it's time to find other ways to use these new data governance capabilities to help the business. These days, I'm regularly being pulled into machine learning projects to offer some assurance that the personal and sensitive information pouring into these innovative applications for research and development (R&D), marketing and sales is being used in a compliant way. Certainly, good GDPR hygiene is a tremendous asset in this effort, but there is a lot more to consider when it comes to machine learning (ML).

Facial-recognition technology is not new, but it has progressed immensely in the past few years, mainly because of advances in artificial intelligence. Naturally, this has drawn the interest of Silicon Valley, advertising agencies, hardware manufacturers, and the government. But not everyone is thrilled. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and 35 other advocacy groups, for example, sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos demanding that his company stop providing advanced facial-recognition technology to law enforcement, warning that it could be misused against immigrants and protesters. Early iterations of the technology, which dates back to the 1960s, were clunky. Police had to create a facial-recognition database, which required a human user to specify key points on a photo of each subject's face, such as the center of pupils and corners of the eyes, mouth, and nose.

Google (Alphabet) recently decided to end its participation in a US military drone program, whereby Google had been supplying its AI technology to the US government. This came after 4,000 Googlers decried the company's involvement in what could turn into "autonomous killing machines," demanding an exit from "the business of war." It was Google deciding to live up to its "Don't be evil" mantra. Apparently that same credo doesn't apply to embracing state-sponsored censorship in authoritarian China. Eight years ago Google co-founder Sergey Brin told The Wall Street Journal, "[I]n some aspects of [China's] policy, particularly with respect to censorship, with respect to surveillance of dissidents, I see some earmarks of totalitarianism." Today, when cash is on the line, the company is marching back into China with a state-censored search tool.

The great thing about integrating AI with the legal system is that it gives new perspective to everyone related. Instead of talking about computers, hardware and physical technological breakthroughs, engineers are starting to think about arguments and logic. There is one very important piece of software that exemplifies the benefits of this integration, and it is called ROSS. ROSS "listens" to lawyer's specific questions and, through complex and amazing AI thinking processes, provides a concrete answer based on any given parameters, such as the country or year that the dilemma relates to. While ROSS is probably the best example of AI integrated to the legal system today, it definitely won't be the last.

Nearly a decade ago a 47-year-old black woman named Denise Green was pulled from her vehicle and held at gunpoint by six San Francisco police officers. One of them pointed a shotgun at her face, another handcuffed her and directed her to kneel. Despite having a history of knee problems, Green complied with every order given. Twenty minutes later she was released, free to go about her life. The police initially suspected Green of driving a stolen vehicle when a machine learning algorithm designed to scan license plates misidentified hers, and incorrectly flagged her car as stolen. Needless to say, AI isn't perfect.

Many people are already using, perhaps without knowing it, tools based on artificial intelligence (AI). Almost everyone probably ignores the absence of laws that govern how it works. We are surrounded by absurd regulations (for example, in Alabama it is illegal to drive while blindfolded; in France, you can't name a pig "Napoleon," etc.), however, there are no guidelines that regulate the use of software for autonomous driving vehicles nor the algorithms that support decision making to prioritize care for hospital patients or that pre-select which job candidates should be interviewed. Fortunately, it seems that our political systems have finally understood the urgency with which we need to apply legislation to this area. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Representatives John K. Delaney (D-Md.) and Pete Olson (R-Texas)-- introduced a bill called The Fundamentally Understanding the Usability and Realistic Evolution of Artificial Intelligence Act of 2017, also known as the FUTURE of AI Act.