In this episode of Planet Lex, host Daniel Rodriguez speaks with Northwestern Pritzker School of Law George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law John McGinnis and Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Larry Birnbaum about emergent technology and its effects on the law. Dan opens the interview by reminding everyone that it has been 10 years since the publication of Raymond Kurzweil's book, "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology," and poses the question of exactly how close we are to the day when computer intelligence surpasses human intelligence. Larry shares his belief that the singularity is coming, though the time table is unknown. John agrees and states that the victory of IBM's computer system Watson over its human competition on Jeopardy shows the accelerating technology and that software and connectivity are improving, in addition to hardware computation. Both guests analyze how this technology might significantly impact intermediary positions within the workforce and consider the implications on the practice of law.

Decision makers, such as doctors and judges, make crucial decisions such as recommending treatments to patients, and granting bails to defendants on a daily basis. Such decisions typically involve weighting the potential benefits of taking an action against the costs involved. In this work, we aim to automate this task of learning \emph{cost-effective, interpretable and actionable treatment regimes}. We formulate this as a problem of learning a decision list -- a sequence of if-then-else rules -- which maps characteristics of subjects (eg., diagnostic test results of patients) to treatments. We propose a novel objective to construct a decision list which maximizes outcomes for the population, and minimizes overall costs. We model the problem of learning such a list as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and employ a variant of the Upper Confidence Bound for Trees (UCT) strategy which leverages customized checks for pruning the search space effectively. Experimental results on real world observational data capturing judicial bail decisions and treatment recommendations for asthma patients demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

In the past half decade, artificial intelligence and machine learning have made significant leaps into the mainstream and into our daily lives. According to research firm Markets and Markets, the artificial intelligence market is set to grow to 5.05 billion by 2020 thanks to the increased applicability of various AI technologies into everything from finance to healthcare to retail. Today, doctors can diagnose Sepsis with an AI algorithm, for instance, and researchers can track endangered species through AI-enhanced photo capture systems. Clearly, these new self-learning and ever-improving technologies have limitless potential in a number of innovative industries. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC) recently hosted a panel discussion during its TecNation 2016 event that focused on where we stand with Artificial Intelligence and how it will affect our lives and unlock our potential in the long run.

A rainbow flag flies with the Union flag above British Cabinet Offices. Thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted under Britain's now-defunct sexual offense laws will be posthumously pardoned. The Ministry of Justice announced the proposed amendment Thursday that would posthumously pardon thousands convicted under those outdated laws. The so-called "Turing's Law" would also allow those who are living to apply to have their names removed from criminal records. Lord John Sharkey, the man behind the amendment, called the development "momentous" and said that of the 65,000 men convicted under the laws, 15,000 are still alive, BBC reported.

The people who study artificial intelligence for a living say the technology should not make us fear for our lives. This is the gist of the first in a series of reports from a Stanford University team about the effect AI will have over the next century. "The frightening, futurist portrayals of Artificial Intelligence that dominate films and novels, and shape the popular imagination," the report reads, "are fictional." The report focused on how AI might affect the typical American city in 2030. The most sweeping changes laid out were on the transportation front, as self-driving cars are expected to become more commonplace.

It is Thursday, Oct. 20. Disney and Dole Food Co. are partnering to get kids to eat their fruits and vegetables. California's proposed rules for self-driving vehicles are getting pushback from vehicle makers and industry groups that fear the regulations could slow development of the technology and conflict with more flexible federal rules. Has homelessness in Los Angeles gotten bad enough that Angelenos will be willing to tax themselves in order to help others? Proposition HHH asks voters to authorize 1.2 billion in borrowing to build housing with on-site clinical services.

BRISBANE, Australia – A man charged in the death of a New Zealand tourist who plummeted from his apartment balcony after the two began arguing during a date was found not guilty of murder on Thursday. Tinder date found NOT GUILTY of killing Warriena Wright after she plunged 14 floors to her death https://t.co/WCKOHWnAT1 A Queensland state Supreme Court jury also acquitted Gable Tostee, 30, of the lesser offense of manslaughter in the death of 26-year-old Warriena Wright, who fell from Tostee's balcony in 2014 after the two met through the dating app Tinder. He had faced a life sentence if convicted. Prosecutors did not allege that Tostee threw Wright to her death, but had argued she was so scared of Tostee that she fell 14 floors while trying to escape from his apartment balcony in the city of Gold Coast.

A record 889 people under 18 fell victim to sex crimes and other offenses perpetrated via social networking services from January to June, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The number is 33 higher than the tally from July to December last year, marking the highest level since data on a half-year basis became available in 2008. As a breeding ground for sex crimes, Twitter and other largely unregulated SNS sites overtook dating sites, which are bound by regulations including a minimum age rule of 18, analysts said. Of the total, 348, or 40 percent, fell prey to indecent acts, 268 to child pornography and 225 to prostitution. Eight children, including some as young as 11, were raped, and 13 abducted.

An Australian man has been acquitted of the murder of a New Zealand woman during their first Tinder date. Gable Tostee, 30, was charged after Warriena Wright, 26, fell from his balcony in Queensland's Gold Coast in August 2014. Prosecutors argued that she was so intimidated that she tried to escape by climbing to a lower floor, but fell. After four days of deliberation, the jury found him not guilty of murder and manslaughter. Defence lawyer Nick Dore said outside the court that his client was "relieved this matter is now behind him and he's looking forward to moving on with his life".

This is the fourth installment in a series that aims to explain and peer inside the black-box algorithms that increasingly dominate our lives. Early computers were mostly just big calculators, helping us process large numbers. Now, however, computers are so powerful that they are learning how to make decisions on their own in the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence. But AI-enabled machines are only as smart as the knowledge they have been fed. Microsoft learned that lesson the hard way earlier this year when it released an AI Twitter bot called Tay that had been trained to talk like a Millennial teen.