Artificial Intelligence (AI) is able to impact almost everything in much the same way electricity did in the early 1900s by replacing steam powered machines. For example, AI can transform FinTech, healthcare, logistics, search engines, etc. The obvious advantages of AI are that errors are reduced, repetitive one second human thought tasks are replaceable (e.g. is that a dog or cat in the photo), scalability and continuous operation. AI is also able to surpass human level capability such as quickly deriving insights from large volumes of data. The benefits to the user include more personalised service (e.g. more targeted advertising to increase sales) and feedback on user behaviour for R&D teams to develop new products/services or improve existing products/services.

The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence (AI) defines AI as a cross-disciplinary approach to understanding, modelling and creating intelligence of various forms. According to Konstantine Arkoudas and Selmer Bringsjord, it is a field devoted to building machines capable of displaying behaviours deemed intelligent, at least in well-controlled environments. A machine that possess intelligence similar with or superior to that of a human poses numerous ethical and legal issues. For example, Nick Bostrom in Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies wonders how AI would see the human values and purpose. He suggests that the idea of a machine (with its essence being algorithms) is incompatible with the biological nature of our feelings that set the base for our moral values.

Malta is set to become the first country in the world to regulate services in the sector of artificial intelligence, blockchain and Internet of Things devices. Parliamentary secretary for financial services Silvio Schembri announced that a legal framework to regulate these sectors will be launched in the coming weeks. He said the law will satisfy anti money laundering and Know Your Client regulations, without stifling technological innovation. "This new regulator will help those who wish to invest in this sector to operate within a legal structure and gain the trust of millions of potential customers all over the world who want to make use of new services related to blockchain technology", Schembri told a blockchain conference in Dubai. During his visit to Dubai, Schembri also met up with representatives from Smart Dubai - an initiative by the Dubai government to promote smart technologies with the lofty ambition of turning the Arab emirate into the happiest city in the world.

The rapidly advancing area of artificial intelligence will require a new field of law and new regulations governing a growing pool of businesses involved, according to Microsoft Corp, a 25-year participant in AI research. Companies making and selling AI software will need to be held responsible for potential harm caused by'unreasonable practices' – if a self-driving car program is set up in an unsafe manner that causes injury or death, for example, Microsoft said. And as AI and automation boost the number of laborers in the gig-economy or on-demand jobs, Microsoft said technology companies need to take responsibility and advocate for protections and benefits for workers, rather than passing the buck by claiming to be'just the technology platform' enabling all this change. Microsoft broaches these ideas in a 149-page book entitled "The Future Computed," which will also be the subject of a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. As Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft seeks to be a leader in AI and automating work tasks, it's also trying to get out in front of the challenges expected to arise from promising new technologies, such as job losses and everyday citizens who may be hurt or disadvantaged by malfunctioning or biased algorithms.

Health care providers enter into dozens of contracts with outside companies, like medical record disposal or storage entities, that have access to patients' medical information. Dan Mulholland, senior partner at the health law firm Horty Springer, said these contracts come and go so frequently that they're not always reviewed by a lawyer because of cost and time constraints. But even tiny errors in the documents can create huge liabilities if patient information is mishandled. "There have been some fines for privacy breaches, imposed under HIPAA, that have been in the millions of dollars," said Mulholland. Mulholland said AI software created by local start-up LegalSifter could provide a sort of advanced spell check to clients.

The system was trained with public employment records, an ostensibly unbiased dataset. But even 20 years after sex-based discrimination was thrust into the media spotlight, the tech industry still hasn't fully corrected its gender imbalance. The job screening system "learns" that most software engineers are men and starts favoring male candidates over women. This dangerous scenario is one of many posited in "The Future Computed," a new book published by Microsoft, with a foreword by Brad Smith, Microsoft president and chief legal officer, and Harry Shum, executive vice president of Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence and Research group. The book examines the use cases and potential dangers of AI technology, which will soon be integrated into many of the systems people use everyday.

Some courts in the U.S., particularly in states from California to New Jersey, use crime-predicting algorithms to determine if a defendant is likely to commit another crime in the future. While the software helps judges decide who gets bail, who goes to jail and who can walk away free, it appears the technology isn't very reliable and opens doors to a more unfair justice system. Dartmouth College researchers Julia Dressel and Hany Farid tackled the issue with the so-called risk assessment algorithms in a paper published in Science Advances. The study examined one popular risk-assessment algorithm, called Compas, and pointed out how the software's recidivism predictions are no different from the answers random people give to online surveys. Farid, who teaches computer science at Dartmouth, and Dressel, who majored in computer science and gender studies at the same school, used Amazon Mechanical Turk in the study.

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Researchers at Dartmouth College have found that a computer program widely used by courts to predict an offenders' risk of reoffending is no more fair or accurate than a bunch of random non-experts who were given the same data and asked to make predictions. The program, Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, is used in several states to inform pretrial, parole, and sentencing decisions. And while it may sound sophisticated--COMPAS has 137 variables and a proprietary algorithm--the software performs no better than a simple linear predictor using just two variables. "Claims that secretive and seemingly sophisticated data tools are more accurate and fair than humans are simply not supported by our research findings," said co-author Julia Dressel, an undergraduate who performed the research with Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid. For their peer-reviewed study, published Wednesday in Science Advances (Science magazine's open-access "offspring"), Dressel and Farid commissioned human participants through Amazon's Mechanical Turk program.

The American criminal justice system couldn't get much less fair. Across the country, some 1.5 million people are locked up in state and federal prisons. More than 600,000 people, the vast majority of whom have yet to be convicted of a crime, sit behind bars in local jails. Black people make up 40 percent of those incarcerated, despite accounting for just 13 percent of the US population. With the size and cost of jails and prisons rising--not to mention the inherent injustice of the system--cities and states across the country have been lured by tech tools that promise to predict whether someone might commit a crime.