In our Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Workplace article series we are considering the potential positive impacts that AI could have on the workplace and the possible amendments required to Irish employment law to allow these to happen. In our opening article in the series we identified gender inequality as an Irish employment law issue requiring urgent attention and an issue that could be helped by the clever use and application of AI. In this article, we focus on how AI can help employers promote gender equality including; gender pay gap reporting, encouraging gender diversity and fostering collaborative workplaces. Mandatory gender pay gap reporting is fast approaching in Ireland, with two separate pieces of legislation on the issue currently working their way through the legislative process. On 26 June 2018 the Cabinet approved the General Scheme of the Gender Pay Gap Information Bill.

Google may be developing a special version of its search engine that would allow certain information to disappear in China. It would not be the first time a company has done so – and it would not even be the first time Google has done so. The decision has turned fresh attention to China's internet censorship regime, so wide-ranging that it has been labelled the "Great Firewall" and so powerful that it has allowed the government to ban people from using a single letter. The suggestion that China could be partnering with the regime has been attacked by human rights campaigners and others, who suggested that Google relenting on censorship would be a "dark day", in the words of Amnesty International. It would not be the first of such days, as Google would follow a whole host of companies including LinkedIn that already censor their users as the price of operating in China.

The first industrial revolution witnessed the emergence of mechanical production and the second was fuelled by electrically powered mass production. The third industrial revolution was driven by the internet and automated production. All three revolutions focused on scalable efficiency (doing things right) and moved towards scalable adaptability (doing the right thing). The fourth industrial revolution will be different. It will bring significant changes to the way we live, interact and do business.

The Google.cn for China website is seen on a computer screen in this photo illustration. Google is reportedly working on a censored version of its search engine to comply with China's government's demands. The Google.cn for China website is seen on a computer screen in this photo illustration. Google is reportedly working on a censored version of its search engine to comply with China's government's demands. Google is testing a mobile version of its search engine that will adhere to the Chinese government's censorship demands, including the blocking of certain websites and search terms, according to multiple reports.

Google is developing a version of its search engine that will conform to China's censorship laws, reports say. The company shut down the engine in 2010, complaining that free speech was being limited. But online news site The Intercept says Google has being working on a project code-named Dragonfly that will block terms like human rights and religion, a move sure to anger activists. One state-owned newspaper in China, Securities Daily, dismissed the report. "We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com," it said.

SAN FRANCISCO/HONG KONG/BEIJING – Google is preparing a version of its search engine for China that blocks results Beijing considers sensitive, according to people familiar with the situation. The initiative is code-named Dragonfly and is one of several options the company is pursuing for returning to China, the people said, while noting the timing is still up in the air. They asked not to be identified discussing private plans. The move would mark an abrupt about-face by the Alphabet Inc. unit and a win for China's communist government, which suppresses free speech online. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose parents brought him to the U.S. to escape communist Russia, led a dramatic exit from mainland China in 2010 after the company refused to self-censor search content.

Eight years after their very public falling out, could China and Google be pals once again? Whispers circulating Monday, first reported by The Intercept, suggested that Google would soon launch a Chinese version of its search engine that will kowtow to the Chinese Communist Party by scrubbing various bête noires: not least criticism of its human-rights record, calls for Tibetan independence and the bloodshed around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. Free speech advocates have condemned the rumors, which have since been confirmed by anonymous Google sources to other media. Amnesty International warned complying with the Great Firewall -- the world's most sophisticated state-censorship apparatus, employing at least 2 million online censors -- would constitute "a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom." It would also mean Google would have to block search results in China for currently verboten Western media, such as the New York Times, Bloomberg and, indeed, TIME.

The country that wins the global race for dominance in artificial intelligence stands to capture enormous economic benefits, including potentially doubling its economic growth rates by 2035. Unfortunately, the United States is getting bad advice about how to compete. Over the past year, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom have all launched major government-backed initiatives to compete in AI. While the Trump administration has begun to focus on how to advance the technology, it has not developed a cohesive national strategy to match that of other countries. This has allowed the conversation about how policymakers in the United States should support AI to be dominated by proposals from advocates primarily concerned with staving off potential harms of AI by imposing restrictive regulations on the technology, rather than supporting its growth.

HONG KONG – Alphabet Inc.'s Google is preparing to launch a censored version of its search engine for China that will block results Beijing considers sensitive, The Intercept reported. Google's been working on a project code-named Dragonfly since the spring of 2017 and demonstrated a sanitized version of its search app to Chinese officials, the news outlet reported, citing company documents and unidentified people familiar with the matter. A final version of the app could be launched within six to nine months, it said. "We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com. But we don't comment on speculation about future plans," Google said in an emailed statement.

In 2010, Google made a moral calculus. The company had been censoring search results in China at the behest of the Communist government since launching there in 2006. But after a sophisticated phishing attack to gain access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google decided to stop censoring results, even though it cost the company access to the lucrative Chinese market. Across nearly a decade, Google's decision to weigh social good over financial profit became part of Silicon Valley folklore, a handy anecdote that cast the tech industry as a democratizing force in the world. But to tech giants with an insatiable appetite for growth, China's allure is just as legendary.