The second "Computers Gone Wild: Impact and Implications of Developments in Artificial Intelligence on Society" workshop took place on February 19, 2016 at Harvard Law School. Marin Solja?i?, Max Tegmark, Bruce Schneier, and Jonathan Zittrain convened this informal workshop to discuss recent advancements in artificial intelligence research. Participants represented a wide range of expertise and perspectives and discussed four main topics during the day-long event: the impact of artificial intelligence on labor and economics, algorithmic decision-making, particularly in law, autonomous weapons, and the risks of emergent human-level artificial intelligence. Each session opened with a brief overview of the existing literature related to the topic from a designated participant, followed by remarks from two or three provocateurs. The session leader then moderated a discussion with the larger group.

A well-dressed humanoid not named Ross. Lawyers can get a bad reputation for being slimy and conniving, but ROSS has neither of those qualities. Ask ROSS to look up an obscure court ruling from 13 years ago, and ROSS will not only search for the case in an instant - without contest or complaint - but it'll offer opinions in plain language about the old ruling's relevance to the case at hand. Just about the only thing it can't do is fetch coffee. Not that anyone should blame it, seeing as ROSS is a piece of artificial intelligence software.

New technology could lead humans to relinquish control over decisions to use lethal force. As artificial intelligence advances, the possibility that machines could independently select and fire on targets is fast approaching. Fully autonomous weapons, also known as'killer robots,' are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction toward reality. As artificial intelligence advances, the possibility that machines could independently select and fire on targets is fast approaching. Fully autonomous weapons, also known as'killer robots,' are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction( like the plot of Terminator) toward reality Researchers explain that machines would make life-and-death determinations outside of human control.

By now you've probably heard the story of Tay, Microsoft's social AI experiment that went from "friendly millennial girl" to genocidal misogynist in less than a day. While Tay promised to learn from her interactions with people online, Microsoft apparently hasn't learned anything from the countless headlines about how Twitter users like to talk to visible women – everything from gleefully anarchic trolling to threats and abuse – otherwise it would have seen this coming. At first, Tay's story seems like a fun one for anyone who's interested in cautionary sci-fi. What does it mean for the future of artificial intelligence if a bot can embody the worst aspects of digital culture after just 16 hours online? If any AI is given the vastness of human creation to study at lightning speed, will it inevitably turn evil?

This piece was originally published on Medium in Imaginary Papers, an online publication of Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination. Matt Scherer runs the Law and AI blog. Artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our economy and society, and are being designed with an ever-increasing ability to operate free of direct human supervision. Algorithmic trading systems account for a huge and still-growing share of stock market transactions, and autonomous vehicles with A.I. "drivers" are already being tested on the roads. Because they operate with less human supervision and control than earlier technologies, the rising prevalence of autonomous A.I. raises the question of how legal systems can ensure that victims receive compensation if (read: when) an A.I. system causes physical or economic harm during the course of its operations.

Ross has been built on IBM's cognitive computer Watson and is designed to read and understand language, formulate hypotheses when asked questions, conduct research, and generate responses in order to back up its conclusions. Ross also improves with age, as it learns from its experiences and gains knowledge with more interaction. "You ask your questions in plain English, as you would a colleague, and ROSS then reads through the entire body of law and returns a cited answer and topical readings from legislation, case law and secondary sources to get you up-to-speed quickly. In addition, ROSS monitors the law around the clock to notify you of new court decisions that can affect your case," ROSS website says. Ross will also serve as a time efficiency tool, as it will be capable of narrowing down results from a thousand answers to a handful of the most relevant answers and then translates them into an understandable language.

It's well known that we in the tech sector love our acronyms. We also like re-badging stuff.What was once ASP (application service provision) morphed into SaaS (software as a service) and then became part of the cloud computing eco-system. And so it is at the moment with AI (artificial intelligence). There have been a number of pronouncements recently, particularly from private practice firms, about their adoption of AI. But is the truth more weighted towards the "artificial" than the "intelligence"? That well-known convenient one-stop-shop of truth, Wikipedia, defines AI as "a machine acting as a rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximise its chance for success at an arbitrary goal".

There are additional obstacles to finding programmers and manufacturers of fully autonomous weapons liable under civil law, in which a victim files a lawsuit against an alleged wrongdoer. The United States, for example, establishes immunity for most weapons manufacturers. It also has high standards for proving a product was defective in a way that would make a manufacturer legally responsible. In any case, victims from other countries would likely lack the access and money to sue a foreign entity. The gap in accountability would weaken deterrence of unlawful acts and leave victims unsatisfied that someone was punished for their suffering.

Microsoft, the famously conservative company best-known for producing office software like Windows, has taken the unexpected step of entering the burgeoning industry of marijuana. The company, founded by Bill Gates, announced a partnership on Thursday with Kind Financial, a Los Angeles firm that sells computer systems to governments that track legalized marijuana sales. Microsoft, which is headquartered in Washington, a state where recreational cannabis is now legal, is licensing Kind to sell Microsoft cloud services to authorities to monitor sales – rather than becoming directly involved in the trade itself. Kind, founded in 2013, sells pot tracking software to growers, sellers and governments. But even the cannabis company recognizes the foundations of its business is controversial in some quarters.

But in the digital age, sometimes humor has a way of capturing national attention more easily than pulling on the public's heartstrings. That was certainly the case recently when the comedy website Funny or Die released a video to promote a new bill that had been introduced in the Senate called The Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act. The goal of the video was to shed light on the truly backwards laws that dictate states' treatment of assault survivors. And by all accounts, it worked. But the real measure of success came last month, when the Senate passed the bill unanimously. Soon it will reach the House of Representatives, where, Brad Jenkins, a former White House staffer and executive producer of Funny or Die DC, expects it to pass, as well.