This article was originally published by the World Economic Forum. The doomsday scenarios spun around this theme are so outlandish--like The Matrix, in which human-created artificial intelligence plugs humans into a simulated reality to harvest energy from their bodies--it's difficult to visualize them as serious threats. Meanwhile, artificially intelligent systems continue to develop apace. Self-driving cars are beginning to share our roads; pocket-sized devices respond to our queries and manage our schedules in real-time; algorithms beat us at Go; robots become better at getting up when they fall over. It's obvious how developing these technologies will benefit humanity. But, then, don't all the dystopian sci-fi stories start out this way?

One of the country's biggest law firms has become the first to publicly announce that it has "hired" a robot lawyer to assist with bankruptcy cases. The robot, called ROSS, has been marketed as "the world's first artificially intelligent attorney." ROSS has joined the ranks of law firm BakerHostetler, which employs about 50 human lawyers just in its bankruptcy practice. The AI machine, powered by IBM's Watson technology, will serve as a legal researcher for the firm. It will be responsible for sifting through thousands of legal documents to bolster the firm's cases.

A few years ago, a young man named Kyle Behm took a leave from his studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He was suffering from bipolar disorder and needed time to get treatment. A year and a half later, Kyle was healthy enough to return to his studies at a different university. Around that time, he learned from a friend about a part-time job. It was just a minimum-wage job at a Kroger supermarket, but it seemed like a sure thing. His friend, who was leaving the job, could vouch for him. For a high-achieving student like Kyle, the application looked like a formality. But Kyle didn't get called in for an interview. When he inquired, his friend explained to him that he had been "red-lighted" by the personality test he'd taken when he applied for the job. The test was part of an employee selection program developed by Kronos, a workforce management company based outside Boston.

WASHINGTON Technology, media, pharmaceutical and other companies, along with major corporate lobbying groups, filed legal briefs on Friday in support of a Microsoft Corp lawsuit that aims to strike down a law preventing companies from telling customers the government is seeking their data.

Immersive uses text analytics via machine learning to uncover new insights from unstructured data and has developed a'sentiment index' which allows companies to discern how happy or unhappy customers are based on the content of their emails. Immersive worked with the Victorian Department of Justice to secure text information and allow 10,000 workers in Victoria to find information quickly across multiple systems using text search and indexing technologies. Traditionally an IT department would start with the business requirements, find the data and build an application. "For the last 30 years it was all about converged systems, centralised systems, bringing data in and normalising data… That centralisation or converging of systems was enabling some cost savings and some good analytics," Gnau said.

Organisations are beginning to'listen' to unstructured data found in texts which was previously deemed boring or irrelevant to provide insights, says Evan Harridge, founder of Immersive. Immersive uses text analytics via machine learning to uncover new insights from unstructured data and has developed a'sentiment index' which allows companies to discern how happy or unhappy customers are based on the content of their emails. "In a lot of cases we are looking at opportunities that don't exist, because we can now store and analyse all of this information which was just seen as useless or not valuable," Harridge told Which-50 during The Hadoop Summit in Melbourne last week. "Customers are starting to realise all the conversations and all the email communications we have potentially generate value. Rather than just the summarised information or the headings or the information inside the cost table, we take everything and use it as context."

The growth of the digital economy has brought about different waves of technology, with the next one being a wave of connectivity. Computing has moved from the traditional desktop models to series of networks known as the Internet of Things (IOT). What this shift in paradigm means for us is that many of the objects that surrounds us will be on a network in one form or another. This recent development has doubled the research on sensor network technologies and advancement in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), to enable the invisible connection of information and communications systems. Driven by the prevalence and proliferation of smart devices enabled by open wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and RFID, the IOT is an evolution of the internet as we know it, into a network of interconnected equipment, objects and systems.

You are sat in a café thinking about a last minute birthday present for a friend or relative who you will be meeting later that day. Using your smartphone, you find something suitable via Amazon or similar web-based retailer. You place the order, paying a slight premium for instant delivery. Twenty minutes later you receive a notification that a drone will be arriving shortly at a delivery-port close to the café. You make the five minutes' walk to the designated meeting point.

Readers of my previous article, which sought to debunk some of the myths around robotic process automation and artificial intelligence, were hopefully convinced to not be fearful of an impending jobs apocalypse. However I hope they were not led to believe that a move to RPA is all smooth sailing and happy faces, because the truth is there are numerous processes and rules to consider before your business takes the plunge. Not least of these are the potentially significant legal implications that could arise from inviting robots to take charge of the inner workings of a business. Even though it is a fledgling area for many organisations, we have already encountered numerous legal conundrums as clients work through the changes in the way they engage within their existing ecosystem. Some of these legal implications are specific to an industry vertical or local regulatory settings, but I hope it is helpful to lay some of them out so others can ponder what it could mean for them. I'm hoping this article will open eyes a little wider within organisations looking to proactively prepare and make provisions for their journey into RPA and AI.

Neota Logic has extended its law school partnership programme, this time with the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Australia. The legal AI and expert systems company's most recent outreach venture will see 20 UTS students develop AI applications to improve the delivery of social justice, which in this case centres around working with not-for-profits. The project, that launches next Spring is also supported by Australian law firm, Allens, whose partners will be involved directly in the programme. Allens is also the alliance partner of UK Magic Circle law firm, Linklaters. The latest educational venture follows on from several others, including last October's partnership with Melbourne Law School, where the aim was to build websites to provide legal help to the public. The programme dealt with common legal problems including inaccurate credit reports, handling and managing fines, and assessing employment rights.