IT decision makers in the legal sector are much more inclined to using artificial intelligence and machine learning than their counterparts in other industries. This is according to a new report by CenturyLink, based on a poll of 200 ITDMs across a wide array of industries. In non-legal sectors, just 30 per cent, and 38 per cent of CIOs are doing the same thing, respectively. "IT staff in legal industries have a forward-thinking and well-reasoned attitude to artificial intelligence and automation technologies," says Jamie Tyler, Head of Digital Transformation, CenturyLink. "They understand the impact and benefits that this technology can have, as well as its limitations, well ahead of their peers."

Love them or hate them, you'd better be prepared for these technologies to power the future of the B2B sales process. First, though, there are a few kinks that need to be worked out--or manners to be worked in, however you want to look at it. Don't think so? Don't be so quick to forget Microsoft's chatbot Tay, the millennial-esque chatbot that became the opposite of chill when it sent out a barrage of offensive, racist tweets back in March. What was the result of malicious hacking (and a sad ending for Tay) raised real questions that take far more than 140 snarky characters to answer: Can chatbots be both empowered to provide customer service and still be sensitive to human emotions? Some in the industry, like the co-founder of machine-learning startup Koko, say yes. The company is working to add empathy as a service to its chatbot-human interactions.

The test for what is'fair' is a matter of degree and the impression the court forms of the defendant's conduct.

Amid Japan's rapidly aging population, a burgeoning industry is targeting families expecting a death in the near future. Services on offer range from seminars on funerals and inheritance arrangements to a board game that prepares players for the financial implications of age-related decline. With more and more elderly Japanese living alone, consultations are also offered on how to obtain guardianship needed for time in hospital, as well as how to bequeath assets to individuals and organizations other than legal heirs. Pip Robot Technology Co.'s "Kokorozumori" ("Making Preparations in One's Head") is a dice board game that gets families to think about the costs and implications of caring for aging, ailing relatives. The Osaka-based manufacturer of robot dolls intended as companions for elderly people created the game in 2015, in collaboration with a research team at the University of Tsukuba. Players form pairs -- one elderly and the other a younger family member -- and earn an income in the form of pension and salary as they progress on the board.

Machine learning is ubiquitous in our daily lives. Every time we talk to our smartphones, search for images or ask for restaurant recommendations, we are interacting with machine learning algorithms. They take as input large amounts of raw data, like the entire text of an encyclopedia, or the entire archives of a newspaper, and analyze the information to extract patterns that might not be visible to human analysts. But when these large data sets include social bias, the machines learn that too. If the source documents reflect gender bias – if they more often have the word'doctor' near the word'he' than near'she,' and the word'nurse' more commonly near'she' than'he' – then the algorithm learns those biases too, the researcher explains According to James Zou, Assistant Professor for Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University, machine systems are learning human biases when examples of such are included in the training set.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has become the latest law firm to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) technology after trialling its use in the firm's Manchester legal services centre. The magic circle firm has agreed a deal to work with software provider Kira Systems, which already has similar arrangements in place with DLA Piper and Clifford Chance (CC). Freshfields has been trialling a number of different AI tools over the past year, but settled on Kira because "unlike other machine learning software, it allows Freshfields' lawyers to train the algorithm to meet their specific needs," according to a statement by the firm. The software is designed to search and analyse contract text, and can also be used over a number of different areas including due diligence, general commercial, corporate, real estate and compliance. Freshfields director of legal services innovation Isabel Parker said: "Kira can be configured around our own custom provisions, using our knowledge base, ensuring that it is perfectly tailored to clients' needs. It complements our own legal expertise, and will further enhance the quality of work delivered to clients while helping to free up the legal services centre team to focus on more complex areas of work."

On 19 September the chief executive of the Law Society, Catherine Dixon, delivered a keynote address at the International Bar Association conference in Washington DC. The Law Society is the professional body that represents more than 170,000 solicitors in England and Wales. Our vision is to be valued and trusted as a vital partner to represent, promote and support solicitors while upholding the rule of law, legal independence, ethical values and the principle of justice for all. We also fulfil an important public interest function which aims to ensure access to justice, protect human rights and freedoms and uphold the rule of law. As part of our work to develop our strategy, we published a piece of research to identify what the future will bring for the legal profession.

The legal sector is more advanced in use its use, understanding and application of AI technologies, a New CenturyLink study suggests. Before 2015, the legal sector was one of the least technologically ept professions. But since then it has undergone an automation transformation. In history and practice, law has largely relied on lawyers and legal aids sifting through copious documents seeking evidence or precedents. A precedent is defined as'an earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances', according to Google.

Taban Deng Gai, who is now first vice president of South Sudan, speaks to reporters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa on Jan. 8, 2014. In an interview airing on Monday's PBS NewsHour, South Sudan Vice President Taban Deng Gai responded to a report that the country's top leaders were profiting off the five-year conflict by saying it's under investigation, but the report might be false. Human rights group The Sentry this month released the results of a two-year investigation that found South Sudanese politicians were spending international aid on mansions and fancy cars, and giving expensive contracts to family members. "They say that my president, for example, they accuse him of having a house in one of the suburbs of Nairobi city. I don't think a crime for a president -- a sitting president for more than 10 years" to have a house there, Deng told PBS NewsHour Weekend anchor Hari Sreenivasan.

Nine people were shot and wounded, one critically, in a Houston neighborhood Monday morning by a lawyer who had issues with his law firm, authorities said. The first report of the shootings began at about 6:30 a.m., Police Chief Martha Montalvo said at a news conference, and when officers arrived, the suspect began firing at them. Police shot the man, whom Montalvo did not identify and who later died at the scene. Numerous weapons were found at the scene, a bomb-squad robot is looking at a Porsche that's believed to be the shooter's and bomb squad officers also were examining the suspect's residence, Montalvo said. Some witnesses have described the gunman firing dozens of shots at cars passing through a condo complex, which is near the affluent West University Place community.