As data science gets set to drive the artifical intelligence (AI) market in 2017, a few Indian startups are initiating development of conversational bots, speech recognition tools, intelligent digital assistants and conversational services to be built over social media channels, a joint study by PwC-Assocham said on Thursday. Organisations are looking to leverage AI capabilities for predictive modelling. "Online shopping portals have extensively been using predictive capabilities to gauge consumer interest in products by building a targeted understanding of preferences through collection of browsing and click-stream data, and effectively targeting and engaging customers using a multichannel approach," the report added. To enable consumers to find better products at low prices, machine learning algorithms are being deployed for better matching of supply with consumer demand. Some of the areas where AI can improve legal processes, said the findings, include improved discovery and analysis based on law case history and formulation of legal arguments based on identification of relevant evidence.

Near the end of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Dick the Butcher offers a simple plan to create chaos and help his band of outsiders ascend to the throne: "Let's kill all the lawyers." Though far from the Bard's most beautiful turn of phrase, it is nonetheless one of his most enduring. All these years later, the law is still America's most hated profession and one of the least trusted, whether you go by scientific studies or informal opinion polls. But advances in artificial intelligence may diminish their role in the legal system or even, in some cases, replace them altogether. Here's what we stand to gain--and what we should fear--from these technologies.

Facebook and Instagram have finally banned developers from using people's posts to spy on them. Until now, the sites had given up public posts freely to sites that monitor activists and protesters and hand that information over to law enforcement. But after sustained criticism from civil liberties groups, it has finally announced that it will introduce a policy banning such surveillance. Facebook said that by doing so it was making its policy "explicit", and that it has already taken action against developers who created or marketed tools meant to be used for surveillance. The only change it had made was to "be sure everyone understands the underlying policy and how to comply", it said.

People who apply for a loan from a bank or credit card company, and are turned down, are owed an explanation of why that happened. It's a good idea – because it can help teach people how to repair their damaged credit – and it's a federal law, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Getting an answer wasn't much of a problem in years past, when humans made those decisions. But today, as artificial intelligence systems increasingly assist or replace people making credit decisions, getting those explanations has become much more difficult. Traditionally, a loan officer who rejected an application could tell a would-be borrower there was a problem with their income level, or employment history, or whatever the issue was. But computerized systems that use complex machine learning models are difficult to explain, even for experts.

TOKUSHIMA – In another downside to rapidly graying Japan, the nation's active hunters -- in decline and aging -- are having a hard time keeping up with their hunting dogs that dash after their prey. That's a big headache for prefectural governments nationwide that need hunters to go after deer, boars and other animals that cause extensive crop damage. The small mountain town of Naka, Tokushima Prefecture, is hoping to solve the problem by using drones and tracking devices on dogs to help increasingly frail hunters bag their targets. In December, the town conducted an experiment using a drone to locate a hunting dog in the mountains. In the experiment, a portable tracking device showed the location of the dog more than 900 meters away on the side of a mountain.

On a November, 2015 morning in Bentonville, Arkansas, first responders discovered a corpse floating in a hot tub. The home's resident, James Andrew Bates, told authorities he'd found the body of Victor Collins dead that morning. He'd gone to bed at 1 AM, while Collins and another friend stayed up drinking. This past December, The Information reported that authorities had subpoenaed Amazon over the case. The police were considering Bates a suspect in what they suspected was a murder after signs of a struggle were found at the scene.

Last time around, in ZeniMax's suit against Facebook-owned Oculus, the virtual realty giant was found to owe the plaintiff $500 million because founder Palmer Luckey was judged to have violated a non-disclosure agreement. That was the bad news, but ZeniMax's other allegations were dismissed. Still, a half-billion bucks is a lot. Today, according to TechCrunch, Oculus dodged a bullet when a second breach-of-contract suit, this time filed by Total Recall Technologies, was dismissed by the court. TRT had filed suit in 2015, alleging that Luckey had violated an NDA he'd signed when he visited the company during development of the Oculus Rift.

Many of these people are being exploited in ways that have existed throughout history: About 22% are victims of "forced sexual exploitation," with others made to work in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, or domestic labor, according to the report from the U.N.'s International Labor Organization. Researchers and activists say part of the solution to this ancient problem may be surprisingly modern: Machine learning and similar statistical tools can identify suppliers of goods and services that are more likely to involve forced labor, whether they're electronics manufacturers in developing countries or escort services in the United States. In the U.S., where sex work is frequently advertised online, leaving a digital trail, these techniques can also help guide law enforcement to sex trafficking gangs and their victims. In international trade, that kind of information can help buyers work with their vendors to ensure ethical practices throughout the supply chain or, failing that, switch to new vendors to stay in compliance with regulatory requirements and their own customers' ethics. "A lot of companies are becoming a lot more purpose-driven, and I think there's a lot more importance even to end consumers today about the type of companies they're buying [from]," says Alex Atzberger, president of SAP Ariba, a massive business-to-business procurement network.

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Waymo further claims that it has proof--via an email that seemed to have been sent to Waymo accidentally--that Uber copied Waymo's laser-radar system, the crucial component of what makes a self-driving car drive itself. The request for a preliminary injunction was a natural next step, given the gravity of Waymo's accusations against Uber. "The circumstances of this case are such that why wouldn't you want your stuff out of Uber's hands while this case is pending," said Courtland Reichman, a trial lawyer who specializes in intellectual property law in Silicon Valley. "If this is such a big deal, as Google says it is, then why wouldn't they?" "We are incredibly proud of the progress that our team has made," an Uber spokesperson said in a statement provided to The Atlantic.