The computer scientists from the University College London and the University of Sheffield developed a software that can predict the outcome of the real life cases in court trials. The software was said to have predicted the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights with 79% accuracy. The scientists developed an algorithm that did not only consider and weigh up legal evidences, but also took considerations of what's right and wrong. The A.I. 'judge' has gotten the same decision at the European courts in almost four out of five cases relating to torture, degrading treatment and privacy. To develop the software, what the scientists did was to have an A.I. computer scan 584 cases with published judgements and examine the information in each case until it was able to come up with its own verdict.

In an interview in Vox, Marc Andreessen asserted that Vinod Khosla "has written all these stories about how doctors are going to go away...And I think he is completely wrong." Mr. Khosla was quick to respond via Twitter: "Maybe @pmarca [Mr. Andreessen] should read what I think before assuming what I said about doctors going away." He included a link to his detailed "speculations and musings" on the topic. It turns out that Mr. Khosla believes that AI will take away 80% of physicians' work, but not necessarily 80% of their jobs, leaving them more time to focus on the "human aspects of medical practice such as empathy and ethical choices." That is not necessarily much different than Mr. Andreessen's prediction that "the job of a doctor shifts and becomes a higher-level, more important job that pays better as the doctor becomes augmented by smarter computers."

Above the Trend Line: machine learning industry rumor central, is a recurring feature of insideBIGDATA. In this column, we present a variety of short time-critical news items such as people movements, funding news, financial results, industry alignments, rumors and general scuttlebutt floating around the big data, data science and machine learning industries including behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious buzz. Our intent is to provide our readers a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help keep you abreast of this fast-paced ecosystem. We're working hard on your behalf with our extensive vendor network to give you all the latest happenings. Be sure to Tweet Above the Trend Line articles using the hashtag: #abovethetrendline.

Over the past few decades, smart machines and robots have taken on numerous manual labor jobs, and developments are showing no signs of stopping. Where does this leave the future of the work force? Surely only blue collar jobs are at risk, right? In a new study, father-and-son Richard and Daniel Susskind, information technology researchers, sought to debunk the standing belief that some human experts--like doctors, lawyers, and accountants--cannot be replaced by robots equipped with artificial intelligence (AI). The belief is maintained by the claim that there's just some things too tricky for robots, like subjective judgement, creativity, and empathy.

There are as many as 1.5 billion English speaking people in the world, including those who speak English as a second language. That may sound like a lot, but that means four out of every five people do not speak English. Therefore, any speech recognition or natural language technology that is built primarily for English speakers will be missing out on 5.9 billion potential customers. That is a big opportunity; but with 6,500 spoken languages still in use throughout the world, it is also a very big challenge. Speech technology has solid roots in American research.

Attendees came together to discover the latest advances in deep learning from leading innovators in the field, and explored how smart artificial intelligence will impact communications, manufacturing, healthcare & transportation.

IBM asked me to give a speech at their World of Watson event this week. In preparing my remarks, I realized what I will be talking about is so important, yet most don't understand what is happening. A once-in-a-lifetime shift in the way we communicate, gain, share and distribute information. And we are just in the first inning of this game. If you will be there, I look forward to saying hello in person.

Wealth Management is the highest growth businesses for any medium to large financial institution. It also is the highest customer touch segment of banking and is fostered on long term (read extremely lucrative advisory) relationships. This three part series explores the automated "Robo-advisor" movement in the first post. We will cover the business background and some definitions . The second post will focus on the overall business model & main functions of a Robo-advisor.

An artificial intelligence "judge" that can accurately predict many of Europe's top human rights court rulings has been created by a team of computer scientists and legal experts. The AI system--developed by researchers from University College London, the University of Sheffield, and the University of Pennsylvania--parsed 584 cases which had previously been heard at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and successfully predicted 79 percent of the decisions. A machine learning algorithm was trained to search for patterns in English-language datasets relating to three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights: Article 3, concerning torture and inhuman and degrading treatment; Article 6, which protects the right to fair trial; and Article 8, on the right to a private and family life. The cases examined were equally split between those that did find rights violations and those that didn't. Despite the AI's success, the legal profession is safe for now.

Apple says their voice recognition app Siri is improved. USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham puts Siri through a few tests to find out. The Tap is similar to Echo, but requires you to press a button to speak to Alexa. AI is now mentioned and discussed at nearly every major tech company event these days, and it's incorporated into a rapidly growing percentage of the news these companies are generating. More importantly, the kind of "contextual intelligence" AI can enable is finally starting to become real for people.