When Joelle Casteix envisioned a project to end child abuse, she did not figure that Artificial Intelligence (AI) would play a role. As a founding member of The Zero Abuse Project, Casteix had been working on legal and regulatory aspects of sexual abuse of children. When she decided to build a database to catalog and index records of abuse by institutions, she realized that she needed a powerful tool to make sense of the data. "We never thought AI would be a part of our mission… I was working to figure out how to make organizations and institutions safer for kids. Our number one goal was to build a database: something where, if we needed the information we could get it quickly," explained Casteix speaking to ITU during the recent AI for Good Global Summit.

Google's £229 (€279) video doorbell is now on sale in Europe. Named Nest Hello, the smart doorbell uses facial recognition technology to identify and greet visitors. It then sends you a voice or text notification so you know who is outside. If you're not at home, Nest Hello lets you see and talk to visitors using the microphone in your smartphone. It can also double up as a security camera to tell you if strangers are lurking nearby.

A majority of people are uncomfortable with the idea of artificial intelligence being used in decision making in public services, according to the results of a poll carried out for the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). It has also urged in a report that the public should be engaged early about the increased use of AI in an effort to build confidence in the responsible use of the technology. A survey carried out for the RSA by polling firm YouGov, which took in responses from 2,000 people, showed that small numbers were aware of the role of automated decision systems in public services: 9% for criminal justice, 14% for immigration, 18% for healthcare and 19% for social support. On being asked if they supported its use, the numbers were only a little higher, or lower in one case: 12% for criminal justice, 16% for immigration, 20% for healthcare and 17% for social support. For each service area there was a majority of 50-60% saying they opposed its use with the rest saying they were unsure, although for healthcare the figure in opposition was 48%. The main concerns about the increased use of AI is that it does not have the empathy required to make important decisions affecting people and communities (61%), that it reduces people's responsibility and accountability (31%) and there is a lack of oversight or government regulation of the decisions (26%).

A UK startup that uses artificial intelligence to help businesses manage data and meet GDPR regulations has won $1 million in funding from a group of companies including Microsoft. Hazy has created a more secure data sharing system that lets people track and manage who has access to information, and generates GDPR compliant legal agreements. The company has won Microsoft's Innovate.AI global startup prize, which is open to small firms using AI to solve problems and improve lives. Hazy took home the Europe prize, along with up to $500,000 in Azure credits, Office 365 licences and $1 million in funding from M12, Microsoft's venture fund, and Notion Capital. Harry Keen, Chief Executive of Hazy, wrote in a blog post: "It's an amazing accolade for the Hazy team, which I'm proud to say is made up of some of the world's best AI and machine learning experts, thanks to our partnership with UCL. "Innovate.AI told us that they received hundreds of applications from startups across North America, Europe and Israel, all vying for their region's respective prize.

It previously piloted similar technology developed by Canadian firm OpenText during its four-year investigation into fraud at Rolls-Royce which involved reviewing 30 million documents. The SFO said that technology was up to 80% cheaper than using outside counsel to review those documents and identify legally privileged material. OpenText, the "AI lawyer", goes "further than just flagging legally privileged material" an SFO spokesperson told Sky News. "It can also scan and organise information from multiple document types - PowerPoint, Outlook calendar invites, Word documents etc - displaying the information relevant to an investigation on a timeline for an investigator to then review." The SFO told Sky News they expect the system to cost "around £12m over the expected lifetime of 7 years - which is offset against the savings the new tech will bring by enhancing our ability to review and investigate in a targeted way, without solely relying on human review."

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Brodies, Scotland's leading law firm, has deployed artificial intelligence platform Luminance, following a successful trial of the technology. Brodies, which was named Legal 500 Scotland Regional Firm of the Year 2018, selected Luminance due to its ability to create efficiencies in areas such as M&A due diligence and real estate transactions. "Our decision to implement Luminance is driven by our client-first agenda. As a firm we are continually investing in ways where we can deliver greater value for our clients. Implementing technology that allows us to drive efficiencies and streamline work, particularly across our offices is just one way of achieving that," commented Will McIntosh, Partner at Brodies.

Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer is the Managing Director of Project Consult in Hamburg, Germany and a renowned expert on digital transformations, business intelligence and enterprise content management. I had the opportunity to sit down with him in May and discuss the GDPR, artificial intelligence and social issues emerging from the dense, digital fog we all find ourselves in. Ulrich, you write and teach extensively about the cultural and social changes in work environments that are a direct result of the emergence of digital transformations. Now that data is at the fingertips of everyone, what changes should society expect that the business world may have already? The pace of digital transformation accelerates day by day. Cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, IoT and other developments are happening so fast that there is a danger they'll get out of control.

Two robots delivering abortion pills at a protest in Belfast have been confiscated by police. The robots were part of an initiative by the group Women on Waves, who claimed that the country's "mediaeval" anti-abortion laws were being broken because the so-called abortion robots were being operated from the Netherlands. "We try to find legal loopholes to draw attention to laws that violate women's rights," Rebecca Gomperts, a spokesperson for Women on Waves, told The Independent. "We've done it before with a ship and a drone to help women who cannot legally get an abortion in their country." One of the small remote controlled vehicles was seized by police before the protest, however a second was deployed after it was hidden by the protestors.

The European Commission's recent outline of an artificial intelligence strategy does not give in to European Parliament calls to grant personhood for AI. The Commission is right in this, though not for the reasons mentioned in a recent open letter published by experts, writes Thomas Burri. Thomas Burri is Assistant Professor of International Law and European Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. In a resolution of 2017, the European Parliament urged the European Commission to propose what it called "electronic personality" for sophisticated autonomous robots. This move by the European Parliament prompted a number of experts to publish an open letter in April 2018 calling upon the Commission to ignore the Parliament's move and reject "electronic personality".