This piece was written by PI Technologist Dr Richard Tynan. Tech firms and governments are keen to use algorithms and AI, everywhere. We urgently need to understand what algorithms, intelligence, and machine learning actually are so that we can disentangle the optimism from the hype. It will also ensure that we come up with meaningful responses and ultimately protections and safeguards. Many technologists emerge from University, College or graduate courses with the impression that technology is neutral and believe that all systems they apply their expertise in developing will also be completely neutral.

The ability to argue, to express our reasoning to others, is one of the defining features of what it is to be human. Processes of argumentation run our governments, structure scientific endeavour and frame religious belief. So should we worry that new advances in artificial intelligence are taking steps towards equipping computers with these skills? As technology reshapes our lives, we are all getting used to new ways of working and new ways of interacting. Millennials have known nothing else.

Up to half of all jobs in Britain are vulnerable to a revolution in robotic technology and artificial intelligence that threatens to replace human workers with machines, … response to the economic challenge, with the establishment of a regulator to oversee the "ethical use of robotics and artificial intelligence".

Rarely does a day go by without more news predicting the end of work. After all, autonomous vehicles are all but certain to replace truckers and taxi drivers in the coming decades, and robots have already taken over many jobs in factories and warehouses, and will continue to expand their reach beyond heavy industry as they become smarter and ever more affordable. Perhaps most frighteningly, even professional services no longer seem safe from the encroachment of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI). Law firms, for example, employ electronic-discovery software, which uses natural language processing to sift through reams of documents faster and more cheaply than the entry-level lawyers who used to do this tedious work. Deep-learning image recognition tools can flag and classify worrisome tumors in digital scans as well as, or better than, experienced radiologists.

For decades AI researchers have built agents that are capable of carrying out tasks that require human-level or human-like intelligence. During this time, questions of how these programs compared in kind to humans have surfaced and led to beneficial interdisciplinary discussions, but conceptual progress has been slower than technological progress. Within the past decade, the term agency has taken on new import as intelligent agents have become a noticeable part of our everyday lives. Research on autonomous vehicles and personal assistants has expanded into private industry with new and increasingly capable products surfacing as a matter of routine. This wider use of AI technologies has raised questions about legal and moral agency at the highest levels of government (National Science and Technology Council 2016) and drawn the interest of other academic disciplines and the general public. Within this context, the notion of an intelligent agent in AI is too coarse and in need of refinement. We suggest that the space of AI agents can be subdivided into classes, where each class is defined by an associated degree of control.

Morality is a fundamentally human trait which permeates all levels of human society, from basic etiquette and normative expectations of social groups, to formalized legal principles upheld by societies. Hence, future interactive AI systems, in particular, cognitive systems on robots deployed in human settings, will have to meet human normative expectations, for otherwise these system risk causing harm. While the interest in “machine ethics” has increased rapidly in recent years, there are only very few current efforts in the cognitive systems community to investigate moral and ethical reasoning. And there is currently no cognitive architecture that has even rudimentary moral or ethical competence, i.e., the ability to judge situations based on moral principles such as norms and values and make morally and ethically sound decisions. We hence argue for the urgent need to instill moral and ethical competence in all cognitive system intended to be employed in human social contexts.

The past decade or so has seen a strong focus on risk and compliance technologies that make use of analytics in financial services. These technologies, which might be called "defense--? technologies--in contrast to "offense--? technologies that involve marketing and revenue growth--include applications and infrastructure for risk management, fraud prevention, regulatory, and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. They bring the power of analytical insights--initially used for identifying marketing opportunities in many companies--to risk mitigation in banking. While these distinctions are somewhat blurred by integrating risk-based insights into "offense--? The Great Recession of the late 2000s drove both a greater focus on risk management and substantial new regulation for financial firms. In part because of the often sweeping scope and tight timelines of these regulations, resulting regulatory compliance and risk management processes in financial institutions have become quite ...

Gaming disorder could soon be recognized by the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization might soon say you suffer from "gaming disorder." A draft of WHO's 11th update of International Classification of Diseases characterizes the disorder as "recurrent" gaming behavior manifested by "impaired control over gaming," "increasing priority given to gaming," and "escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences." The term "gaming disorder" isn't limited to simply excessive time spent playing video games in the entry. The disorder could include adverse online and offline behavior tied to excessive video game activity, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević said.

Authorities say two Southern California people used a drone to deliver illegal drugs to their customers. Benjamin Baldassarre and Ashley Carroll, of Riverside, were charged Tuesday with possessing controlled substances for sale. They also face charges of child endangerment. It was unclear Wednesday if they have attorneys who can comment on the charges. Riverside police said they arrested Baldassarre and Carroll last Thursday after neighbors suspected the two were selling drugs.

Once the stuff of science fiction (who remembers Captain Kirk's concern that he might be replaced by the advanced M5 supercomputer?), artificial intelligence (AI) is today very much a part of our reality. And while it's easy to pick up where Captain Kirk left off and worry that the explosion of AI will take all the work and leave the current labor force with nothing to do, a report from MIT predicts that AI will actually create as many jobs as it eliminates. That goes for the legal world, too. According to Marek Bardonski, Managing Partner & Head of AI at Sigmoidal, "AI is here to help lawyers and researchers by taking over the mundane and tedious tasks, leaving more time for business-critical procedures." The removal of the drudgery that pervades law should be cause for celebration.