Algorithms that detect the threat level of airline passengers might operate without accountability. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more sophisticated, it also becomes more opaque. Machine-learning algorithms can grind through massive amounts of data, generating predictions and making decisions without the ability to explain to humans what it's doing. In matters of consequence--from hiring decisions to criminal sentencing--should we require justifications? A commentary published today in Science Robotics discusses regulatory efforts to make AI more transparent, explainable, and accountable.

"So when we do sue, it's in our view so compelling, we have no option but to sue," said Porat at the Code conference here. Moderator Kara Swisher asked Porat how she wanted the suit to turn out. "The right way," said Porat. The case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall, but there has already been fallout. The engineer at the center of the Waymo v. Google lawsuit -- Anthony Levandowski, who Google alleges stole 14,000 sensor-focused documents before starting self-driving truck company Otto, which Uber bought for an estimated $680 million last summer -- was fired by Uber on Tuesday.

The In-House Counsel's LegalTech Buyers Guide showcases more than 100 must-know legal technology solutions of which 40 products employ artificial intelligence. The innovative technologies are recommended by dozens of top lawyers and experts. The report includes the first infographic of the AI players in the sector. These players are transforming nine sectors of daily law in categories of Contract review, Contract due diligence, Legal research, Ediscovery reviews, Intellectual Property, Expertise automation, e Billing, Legal Analytics, and Prediction Technology. The guide includes recommendations for legal technology software based on dozens of interviews with in-house lawyers and legal experts who have used technology to cut costs and reduce legal inefficiency.

Organizations are slow at adopting progressive methods. This is true for CFOs, CPAs and accountants. The accounting profession needs to prepare for change and threats to competitive advantage because there is an accelerating and disruptive digital technologies transformation in progress called the "digital revolution". We are witnessing significant changes in the nature of technologies available for today's managers and employee teams with regard to infrastructure, availability and capacity. These elements have accumulated in four key technologies often referred as SMAC – Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud.

Now, a quantitative study published on Friday in Nature Astronomy demonstrates that gender bias in astronomical research extends even to journal citations, which are an indicator of academic prestige and are linked with better access to grant money, speaking engagements, and professional advancement. Led by Neven Caplar, a PhD student at ETH Zürich's Institute of Astronomy, the new research found that papers with male lead authors were cited 10 percent more frequently than papers led by women, even after controlling for non-gender-specific disparities such as seniority, team size, publication date, field, and academic institution. The team reached this conclusion after using machine-learning to analyze a dataset of over 200,000 papers published between 1950 and 2015 in five influential journals: Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Nature, and Science. In cases where first authors used their initials--a tactic women researchers disproportionately use to avoid gender bias--Caplar's team took extra measures to identify exceptions in publishing records that exposed authors' full names.

Gigi and Bella Hadid are best known for gracing the covers of magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair. Their father, Mohamed, is grabbing headlines for a long-running legal fight over the construction of a Bel-Air mansion. The 68-year-old has pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges in the case Tuesday. But the fate of the roughly 30,000-square-foot mega-mansion remains unclear. The Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc has been busy lately.

Three Kodi repositories and add-ons have been shut down after being targeted by an anti-piracy group in Israel, it's been reported. They all stopped operating this week after the group, Zira, threatened them with legal action. Though Kodi isn't illegal, people can use third-party add-ons built by developers to access illegal streams for sports events, films and TV shows through the software. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Among the list of technologies that have radically changed our economy in the last year is a handful that did not receive the same level of attention as artificial intelligence or self-driving cars. One, in particular, is called Neural Machine Translation (NMT), a major breakthrough in language technology that some believe is a turning point in how business gets done. The Internet and the connectivity it facilitates is primarily responsible for what we now call the global economy. Emails, web pages, and mobile applications have created a marketplace for ideas and products, as well as empowered organizations to collaborate instantly from thousands of miles away. But for as small as the world is today, it can get smaller, and language is a major part of that.

On Tuesday Uber fired Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of its legal battle with Waymo, Google's self-driving car company. Uber said Levandowski failed to cooperate with the company's internal investigation into allegations asserted in a lawsuit Waymo brought against Uber: mainly, that Levandowski, who previously worked at Google and spent years working on the company's robocar effort, stole reams of intellectual property before he quit in early 2016, and that when he joined Uber six months later, used the illicit know-how to advance his new employer's technology. "This is not a positive development for Uber," says John Marsh, an attorney with the law firm Bailey Cavalieri who specializes in trade secret litigation. "In a perfect world, they would have been able to persuade Levandowski to come clean and demonstrate that there's nothing there"--that he didn't take 14,000 documents full of IP, that Uber did proper due diligence while hiring a competitor's former employee, and that no Waymo intellectual property made its way into Uber's self-driving tech, as Waymo's bombshell lawsuit has alleged. The severance caps off what must be an exceedingly uncomfortable few months for both Levandowski and Uber.

Uber has fired Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who led Uber's self-driving car efforts, because of his refusal to cooperate in the lawsuit filed by competitor Waymo. Levandowski was at the center of a contentious lawsuit between Uber and Waymo over allegations documents he took were used in Uber's self-driving car development. The news was first reported by the New York Times. Earlier this month, Uber reached out to Levandowski in a letter, asking for him to cooperate in the investigation. As part of the request, Uber asked Levandowski either to confirm he never took documents from Google or return any remaining documents in his possession.