EU plans to grant robots legal status could breach human rights law – this was the message from a group of 140 academics and experts in robotics and artificial intelligence, spanning 40 countries. This is in response to a proposal from the European Parliament last year, which had suggested that a special legal status of'electronic persons' could be granted to the more sophisticated, autonomous robots. In an open letter, the experts warned the European Commission that the plans were'nonsensical and non-pragmatic' and a potential breach of human rights. To be clear, the Commission is not suggesting that robots be given rights to vote or own property – rather, the proposal is an attempt to deal with the issue of accountability: if an autonomous robot, with the capacity to learn through interaction, crushes a person in a factory or runs somebody over in the street, who is liable? The EU believes giving such robots'personhood' may be the best solution.

AI is becoming integrated in the digital systems that are part and parcel of our everyday lives. While the technology brings unprecedented opportunities, it is set to reconfigure power relationships within societies and among states; challenging human rights, deepening inequalities, and undermining international governance regimes. These disruptions are important for Global Affairs Canada as they affect Canada's ability to meet its international commitments and obligations related to human rights, inclusion, and democracy. Indeed, reports about biased AI systems fuelling discrimination and facilitating unequal access to services and information are ubiquitous. The role of AI technologies in undermining liberal democracy; eroding privacy; and interfering with human rights and freedoms, such as gender equality, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, is also becoming troublingly apparent.

Britain needs to lead the way on artificial intelligence regulation, in order to prevent companies such as Cambridge Analytica setting precedents for dangerous and unethical use of the technology, the head of the House of Lords select committee on AI has warned. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, Lord Clement-Jones said, reinforced the committee's findings, released on Monday in the report "AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?" "These principles do come to life a little bit when you think about the Cambridge Analytica situation," he told the Guardian. "Whether or not the data analytics they carried out was actually using AI … It gives an example of where it's important that we do have strong intelligibility of what the hell is going on with our data." Clement-Jones added: "With the whole business in [the US] Congress and Cambridge Analytica, the political climate in the west now is much riper in terms of people agreeing to … a more public response to the ethics and so on involved. It isn't just going to be left to Silicon Valley to decide the principles."

Demand is growing for more accountability in the technological systems that increasingly occupy our world. However, the complexity of many of these systems - often systems of systems - poses accountability challenges. This is because the details and nature of the data flows that interconnect and drive systems, which often occur across technical and organisational boundaries, tend to be opaque. This paper argues that data provenance methods show much promise as a technical means for increasing the transparency of these interconnected systems. Given concerns with the ever-increasing levels of automated and algorithmic decision-making, we make the case for decision provenance. This involves exposing the 'decision pipeline' by tracking the chain of inputs to, and flow-on effects from, the decisions and actions taken within these systems. This paper proposes decision provenance as a means to assist in raising levels of accountability, discusses relevant legal conceptions, and indicates some practical considerations for moving forward.

The University of Agder invites applications for a full-time fixed-term position for a period of three years as PhD Research Fellow. The position is linked to the Department of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and is located in Grimstad, Norway. The starting date is as soon as possible or by agreement. The Department of ICT hosts three research groups including nine Professors, 20 Associate Professors/Assistant professors and about 20 Research Fellows, pursuing a variety of research areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), wireless communications, network administration, and embedded systems. This open position is associated with Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) and targets development of a Chatbot based Personal Teaching Assistant (educator).

We are living in the age of Big Data, but data is useless if we do not have algorithms that help us to interpret it. Algorithms are increasingly used in both the public and the private sectors; across industrial sectors for financial trading, recruiting decisions (hiring, firing, and promotions), and for setting insurance premiums. Algorithms help decide whether individuals are desirable candidates for insurance, eligible for a loan or a mortgage, or should be admitted to university. The criminal justice system uses algorithms for sentencing or to decide if someone should be granted parole and to calculate the probability whether someone will commit a crime. Algorithms can – if well-designed and fed unbiased data – make more accurate, efficient, and fairer decisions than humans.

Through the increased availability of data and online connectivity through novel interfaces & APIs, we are faced with more opportunities than ever before. For instance, today, you can use many services to get data on purchases you'd like to make and suggestions on when the optimal time to make the purchase would be (e.g. However, soon, this operation may seem antiquated as artificial intelligence (AI) and assisting algorithms have become more prevalent and can make these decisions in your place. In imagining a future like this, will the balance of power shift toward the data owner and end-purchaser or will tool manufacturers and conduits be able to gain an upper hand? With consumer preferences for regained privacy and control, as well as new regulation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it's plausible to see more data held by the consumer and the consumer exercise more control over where their data is used.

Contract management has gotten on the radar in recent years. The world's contract managers finally gained attention in 2016 when Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström were awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Science. Their work on contract theory not only proves how contracts help us deal with conflicting interests, but also shows the importance of contract management. While contract automation is not new, 63% of procurement organizations from The Hackett Group's 2017 Digital Transformation Study are either exploring or piloting technology to advance the digitalization of contract management. As organizations look to become more digital, contract management is becoming more pervasive and sought after.

Advanced automation is entering the workplace, with more technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robots, carrying out physical and cognitive tasks. Those emerging tools are eliminating, augmenting, or transforming many types of jobs. What does this mean for the way we relate to work and for the future of our professions? MARGINALIA speaks with digital workplace expert, Sharon O'Dea, co-founder of Lithos Partners, blogger at Intranetizen, and CIPR #AIinPR panel member. In this interview, O'Dea describes the key trends to consider when it comes to the changing nature of work.

The latest drone-related patent has been awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the HorseFly Truck Launched Drone Package Delivery System from the Workhorse Group. Numbers of companies are coming forward and getting on board and the drone delivery patents that have been awarded is going up as well. "We feel that the patented HorseFly truck launched drone package delivery system is the first major change to the last mile delivery process since the invention of the package delivery truck. Drivers appreciate the fact that the HorseFly system is fast, reliable, and efficient and last mile package delivery is changing, and the HorseFly delivery system is leading the way," said Steve Burns, Workhorse CEO. Studies have shown that last-mile drone delivery can be both more-efficient and greener than deliveries via truck.