Toronto-based AI startup Diligen has entered the battle for a share of the legal due diligence market. In what is now a rapidly growing legal tech market, Canadian company Diligen is joining a number of startups targeting law firms with an AI-driven due diligence capability. The eight-person company already has several law firm clients, though at present isn't at liberty to name them. The company only started last year and says it has not, as yet, 'officially launched', though it is in full operation. Founders, Laura van Wyngaarden and former Baker & McKenzie associate Konrad Pola, said that their company's project management focus is what differentiates them from other AI-driven due diligence providers.

Artificial intelligence is a big deal. It will change our society, and the way we do things. Just maybe not immediately, and in law it might be even longer. The function of artificial intelligence is directly connected to the concept of big data. The superior functioning of artificial intelligence over current processes is based in part on the superior ability of computing large amounts of information, data sets that are so large and so complex that the traditional means of processing this information simply isn't adequate enough when compared to techniques like predictive analytics.

We have seen how the internet of things and the growing phenomenon of'big data' will throw up major problems for consumers and citizens, problems that have as yet barely been grasped by most policy-makers. In this world of growing complexity, the potential for an unintended consequence becomes greater and greater from machines performing an action that was not anticipated. There are key issues, too, about our reliance on data at a time of massive data generation, data storing and data preservation which have the potential to both obscure results and generate injustices. Perhaps the greatest issue that we now face is caused by our blind faith in machines. We have invested them with certainty and – as we have pointed out – we trust them. Part of the reason for this is an odd confusion that has conflated the machines of the industrial age with the machines of the information age.

The session is comprised of a panel discussion with leading researchers debating the current scientific trends in AI and its applications. That is followed by a broader discussion that dives into how the developments in AI affect our lives and society. The Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation (HLFF) is driven to foster the opportunity for progressive discourse, and the Hot Topic session is a crucial component of that goal. Today, AI is no longer a brash, cryptic concept taken directly from the pages of science fiction. The developments owed to the technology based on AI have altered what we thought possible and has done so in a much quicker fashion than was predicted.

Thus far, the dangers associated with self-driving cars have been largely relegated to their ability to safely navigate our roads and highways. But now the U.S. Department of Justice is interested in taking a closer look at a different kind of danger altogether -- and this has nothing to do with how well an autonomous vehicle can brake or steer. Rather, a new threat analysis team has been tasked with determining the potential security issues associated with not only self-driving cars, but other Internet of Things and connected devices as well. After all, if you can control everything from the palm of your hand, who's to say someone else can't do the same thing? Under Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, who heads the Justice Department's national security team, the new team seeks to secure the internet of things and protect it from potential terrorist threats.

Over the past century, we have made massive strides in the rights revolution. These include rights for women, children, the LGBT community, animals, and so much more. Exploring the future, we must ask ourselves: what next? Will we ever fight for the rights of artificial intelligence? If so, when will this AI rights revolution occur, and what will it look like? We talk about protecting ourselves from AI, but what about protecting AI from us?

Where did the "cyber" in "cyberspace" come from? Most people, when asked, will probably credit William Gibson, who famously introduced the term in his celebrated 1984 novel, Neuromancer. It came to him while watching some kids play early video games. Searching for a name for the virtual space in which they seemed immersed, he wrote "cyberspace" in his notepad. "As I stared at it in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad," he later recalled, "my whole delight was that it meant absolutely nothing."

Experts believe that cyborg prostitution will help'clean up the industry' by reducing sexually transmitted diseases and ending sex slavery. The trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation is one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world. Every year, approximately 21 million adults and children are bought and sold into commercial sexual servitude. As you might imagine, life as a sexual slave is anything but enjoyable or safe for one's health. For this reason, the prospect that robots are likely to take over the prostitution industry by 2025 is, though controversial, heartening news.

NEC Corporation and the University of Tokyo recently announced the commencement of a comprehensive industry-academia alliance for strengthening innovation in Japan. This alliance differs from others in that it has been created under an organization-to-organization agreement to promote comprehensive collaboration, including the sharing of visions and issues from the fundamental research phase to the commercialization of research results phase, the consideration of social acceptance of research results, and the development of human resources for the future. Among the first actions by this industry-academia alliance for innovation will be considering the magnitude of the impact of AI on society, to conclude the NEC/University of Tokyo Partnership Agreement for Future AI Research and Education in the field of Strategic Artificial Intelligence (AI), and to commence specific activities. Conventional industry-academia alliances have only engaged in limited, small-scale joint research related to individual technologies. However, in order to strengthen Japan's innovation and promote meaningful social changes, it will be imperative to carry out investigations on implications for ethics and legal systems with a focus on commercialization, as well as to create new collaborative alliances that are large in scale and cover broad areas, including human resource development.

According to certain experts, by the year 2050, sex robot tourism, marriage, and prostitution will be commonplace. Robotics expert John Snell of Iowa's Kirkwood College suggests that sex robots, which are robots with which one can presumably have intercourse, will be better in the sack than humans. "'Because they would be programmable," Snell explained to Metro UK, "sexbots would meet each individual user's needs." Concerned about the human condition, Snell notes a possible downside, saying, "Robotic sex may become addictive. Sexbots would always be available and could never say no, so addictions would be easy to feed." The University of Victoria Management School's Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars wrote a paper entitled, "Robots, Men, and Sex Tourism" which suggested that sex robots would be used as high-end prostitutes by the year 2050.