Last September, a U.K. House of Commons committee concluded that it is too soon to regulate artificial intelligence (AI). Its recommendation comes too late: The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into force next year, includes a right to obtain an explanation of decisions made by algorithms and a right to opt-out of some algorithmic decisions altogether. These regulations do little to help consumers, but they will slow down the development and use of AI in Europe by holding developers to a standard that is often unnecessary and infeasible. Although the GDPR is designed to address the risk of companies making unfair decisions about individuals using algorithms, its rules will provide little benefit because other laws already protect their interests in this regard. For example, when it comes to a decision to fire a worker, laws already exist to require an explanation, even if AI is not used.

Tesla is suing its former Autopilot director, claiming he took confidential, proprietary information about its self-driving technology and destroyed evidence to cover his tracks, according to a lawsuit filed in Santa Clara Superior Court. It alleges Sterling Anderson also attempted to recruit at least a dozen employees, in violation of his contract, all in an attempt to create a competing autonomous vehicle startup called "Aurora." Also named in the suit is Google's former self-driving director Chris Urmson, Anderson's partner in the venture. Tesla's Model S and Model X vehicles have an autonomous driving system that gathers data from a dozen ultrasonic sensors, a camera and radar, in conjunction with GPS data. The company just rolled out a new Autopilot update that gives the vehicles even more autonomous capability. Ex-Googler Urmson is reportedly an advocate of fully self-driving vehicles, having lobbied congress to allow cars on public roads without pedals or a steering wheel.

Elon Musk's Tesla Motors Inc. sued Thursday a former employee who was in charge of its Autopilot program, accusing him of stealing confidential company information and also of attempting to poach fellow Tesla employees for his new business venture. According to the complaint filed by Tesla in a San Jose, California, court, Sterling Anderson (former director of Tesla's Autopilot program) attempted to recruit at least a dozen Tesla employees (of which only two left eventually) and also took a "hundreds of gigabytes" of confidential and proprietary information related to the development of the semiautonomous Autopilot system which were used to benefit Aurora Innovation LLC, a company Anderson allegedly founded while still employed by Tesla. The lawsuit also says Anderson was assisted in his recruitment efforts by Chris Urmson, the former head of Google's self-driving car project (now called Waymo). Anderson's employment was terminated Jan. 4, according to court documents. "Tesla cannot sit idly by when an employee like Anderson abuses his position of trust and orchestrates a scheme to deliberately and repeatedly violate his non-solicit agreement, hide evidence, and take the company's confidential and proprietary information for use in a competing venture," Tesla said in the lawsuit, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Harmful human bias--both intentional and unconscious--can be avoided with the help of artificial intelligence, but only if we teach it to play fair and constantly question the results. We humans make sense of the world by looking for patterns, filtering them through what we think we already know, and making decisions accordingly. When we talk about handing decisions off to artificial intelligence (AI), we expect it to do the same, only better. Machine learning does, in fact, have the potential to be a tremendous force for good. Humans are hindered by both their unconscious assumptions and their simple inability to process huge amounts of information.

Legal status, code of ethics, tax situation… Europe is pondering robots. On January 12, members of the Committee on Legal Affairs met to discuss regulations for robotics to be adopted by the European Union. Already in May 2016, the same commission proposed to give robots the status of "electronic persons", and thus rights and duties. The idea, among others, was to create a code of ethics determining responsibility in case of damages caused by a robot. The automobile sector and its autonomous vehicles is "the sector that is most in need of European and international regulations," emphasized Belgian Eurodeputy Mady Delvaux.

Robert Morley, chief operating officer at Excello Law, examines the use of AI in the legal industry. Alongside Brexit and Donald Trump, artificial Intelligence (AI) kept headline writers working overtime in 2016 – each competing for our attention in a world of increasing uncertainty. Online, a clear winner has emerged from this unlikely trio of scary topics: AI returns nearly two billion results in Google search, whereas'The Donald' scores a more modest 368 million and Brexit a mere 108 million. Among articles and blogs about the future of law firms, AI has similarly dominated attention as the number one theme. Underpinned by dystopian visions of lawyers being replaced by robots and the growing ranks of tech companies dedicated to replacing the human element from much of day-to-day legal practice, the future for the lawyer has seemed bleak.

Artificial intelligence can boost business productivity and profitability -- as well as find ways to foster human happiness, according to the director of Hitachi's artificial intelligence laboratory. Interest in AI traditionally has centered on purpose-built technology crafted for a particular reason, such as Google's AI program that last year beat a champion player at the Chinese strategy game Go, said Kazuo Yano during a 14 December presentation at AAAS headquarters. The address was part of the Hitachi lecture series, which has brought speakers to AAAS for nearly a decade to examine a wide range of issues related to science and society. Yano, who serves as Hitachi's chief corporate scientist, noted that AI increasingly is being used to address the needs of business. To cope with changing variables like customer behavior and marketplace position, businesses now can take advantage of the flexibility offered by "general-purpose AI," which can be added to existing systems, he said.

Reading Data Science – Machine Learning vs Rules Based Systems by Karthik Guruswamy Data Scientist at Teradata got me thinking about how machine learning is replacing rule-based systems in how we manage and use enterprise content, knowledge, and ideas. These types of rules are extremely easy to understand and easy to code. But, Karthik points out, things quickly get out of hand: "When a system gets operationalized, one starts with 100 scenarios with 100 rules to handle it. As time goes by we encounter more and more exceptions and start making more rules to keep exceptions under control. Think US Tax Code – things get unwieldy and cumbersome over time."

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – Robots about the size of a beer cooler could soon be rolling down Virginia sidewalks to deliver sandwiches, groceries or packages. Supporters say some pending legislation would make the state the first in the nation to regulate such devices. State lawmakers partnered with European company Starship Technologies on bills allowing Virginia cities to join two others in the U.S. and many across Europe where the company is testing its largely autonomous earthbound robots. Much like other tech companies' attempts at airborne drone deliveries, Starship aims to revolutionize the way people get their parcels. Representatives from the company visited Richmond on Wednesday for a demonstration.

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