A British computer expert who helped shut down the NHS'WannaCry' cyber attack has been charged in the US with creating banking malware. Marcus Hutchins, 23, has been charged with six counts of creating and distributing malware known as Kronos. Hutchins made a telephone call from jail hours after his arrest last August to an unidentified individual - which was recorded and filed by US prosecutors, according to court documents. He said he had written code as a youngster which was turned into malicious software that prosecutors say harvested banking details. According to court documents seen by The Washington Post, Hutchins said in the phone call: 'So I wrote code for a guy a while back who then incorporated it into a banking malware, so they have logs of that, and essentially they want to know my part of the banking operation or if I just sold the code on to some guy... once they found I sold the code to someone, they wanted me to give them his name, and I don't actually know anything about him.'

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2018--, which, an artificial intelligence provider and legal research solution, has formed an internal Artificial Intelligence Taskforce consisting of attorney and staff representatives from various practice and industry groups throughout the firm to promote the use of new and disruptive technologies. A diverse group in terms of roles, practice groups and subject matter expertise, the taskforce is tasked with fostering the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and other innovative technologies in ways that complement the firm's strategic business plan. Working with attorneys and staff, the group will continue to establish the firm's short and long-term strategy and execution of the firm's artificial intelligence action plan, taking into account the latest developments in the legal industry and beyond. "Artificial intelligence is growing at a phenomenal speed, and we are proud to be early adopters," said Chief Digital Officer Victor Barkalov. "We are operating at a time when AI has a potential impact on almost every aspect of our business, and we realized quickly that we needed a diverse group to assess how to best implement machine learning throughout the firm, while ensuring we are keeping our clients' best interests in mind. The taskforce recently recommended and implemented Clocktimizer, a tool designed to review timekeeping data to bring predictability and transparency to legal project management and budgeting. "Clocktimizer uses natural language processing to read time card narratives and identify the tasks and activities to help our attorneys with matter management, budgeting and pricing.

On December 31, 2015, I published my original call to arms for society's rational regulation of artificial intelligence before it is too late. I explained certain reasons why someone who is against solving problems through regulation would propose precisely that mechanism to help hedge the threats created by AI, and announced my proposed legislation: The Artificial Intelligence Data Protection Act (AIDPA). Since 2015, we have witnessed AI's rapidly evolving national and international growth and adoption that will soon impact every phase of mankind's life, from birth to death, sex to religion, politics to war, education to emotion, jobs to unemployment. Three of many recent developments confirm why now is the time for the AIDPA: (1) a McKinsey study from late 2017 determined that up to 800 million workers worldwide may lose their jobs to AI by 2030, half of contemporary work functions could be automated by 2055 and other recent studies suggest as many as 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be threatened by automation or AI over the next few decades; (2) AI has now created IP with little or no human involvement and continues to be programmed, tested and used to do so; see my Twitter for a library of media reports on AI-created IP; (3) tech giants and regulators are starting to acknowledge that industries that create and use AI should be at least partially responsible for minimizing the impact of AI-displaced workers. Now – and not later -- society must address AI's legal, economic and social implications with regard to IP and employment.

Marines work on armed MUTT robot in MIX-16 experiment. WASHINGTON: The debate over the use of artificial intelligence in warfare is heating up, with Google employees protesting their company's Pentagon contracts, South Koreans protesting university cooperation with their military, and international experts gathering next week to debate whether to pursue a treaty limiting military AI. While countries like Russia and China are investing heavily in artificial intelligence without restraints, the US and allied militaries like South Korea face a rising tide of opposition. The international conclave has the kind of name you only encounter when dealing with the United Nations and related organizations: the Convention on Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (CCWGGELAWS?). Those experts meet next week and in August.

On May 25, a new law called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is going into effect in the European Union. The law was created to protect EU citizens from potential abuses, like the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal. Though the timing may seem coincidental, this law has been in the works for more than four years. GDPR will replace the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) of 1995. Under GDPR, companies can be fined up to 4% of their worldwide annual revenue from the previous financial year.

Constand's testimony and that of five other accusers allowed prosecutors to uncloak Cosby -- who solidified his reputation as a family man by playing Dr. Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" -- as a manipulative predator who used his built-in trust to trick women into taking powerful intoxicants so he could violate them.

Computer scientists have now invented a way to hide secret messages in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of letters. The new technique, named FontCode, works with common font families such as Times Roman and Helvetica. It is compatible with most word-processing software, including Microsoft Word, as well as image-editing and drawing programs, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Although there are obvious applications for espionage with FontCode, its inventors suggest it has more practical uses in terms of embedding metadata into texts, much like watermarking. "Another application is to protect legal documents: Our technique can be used to detect if a document, even when printed on paper, has been tampered with or not. It can even be used to tell which part of the document is tampered."

While big tech companies might not face regulation of their artificial-intelligence efforts in the US, banks trying to use AI still have to contend with reams of industry-specific rules, including laws ensuring equal treatment of customers. According to Bank of America technology executive Hari Gopalkrishnan, that's a problem for banks interested in using deep learning, the technology responsible for the current AI boom. That's because the decisions made by deep learning can be difficult to interpret--the "why" behind everything the algorithm does is a bit of a mystery. In banking, "[w]e're not fans of lack of transparency and black boxes, where the answer is just'yes' or'no,'" Gopalkrishnan said at a company tech summit. "We want to understand how the decision is made, so that we can stand behind it and say that we're not disfavoring someone."

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. In the Lucinda Williams song "Changed the Locks"--first released in 1988, then again in 1996 by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as "Change the Locks"--the singer describes a number of things you have to change to insulate yourself from an ex: There's nary a mention of one of the most obvious things you have to change after a messy breakup today: a password. Malicious exes now have access to a world of tech-facilitated stalking methods, and it's important to lock them out of your accounts. Your Netflix, alas, is the least of the worries here. While "passwords" may have once meant simply banking PINs and social media passwords--which can do an awful lot of danger on their own--we now also have to remember to update access information for all sorts of apps and devices.

Between Silicon Valley's disruption-happy tech giants and Detroit's suddenly totally on board automakers, it's easy to think of America as the center of the self-driving universe. And so it seems a bit backwards that Audi has decided to release the world's most capable semiautonomous driving feature in … Europe. When the 2019 A8 sedan hits dealer lots later this year, Europeans will have access to Traffic Jam Pilot, which will take control of the car on the highway at speeds below 37 mph; no need for the constant human supervision required by current systems like Tesla's Autopilot. On this side of das pond, however, as CNET reports, too many questions remain about laws that change from one state to the next, insurance requirements, and things like lane lines and road signs that look different in different regions. When the A8 goes on sale here, it won't come with Traffic Jam Pilot.