Technologist David Auerbach joined'Fox & Friends Weekend' to discuss artificial intelligence and its impact on relationships and human connection. Experts say artificial intelligence companions are here, but as concerns mount over the unchecked potential of AI, many fear the growth of the technology could threaten human authenticity and connectivity. One technologist argued that the presence of AI chatbots and even the phenomenon of forming an attachment to an artificial being is not new. "There are already chatbots out there that people have coursed to act romantically with them, and they were devastated when they were turned off. So one of the issues is just when you have people manufacturing these things that can create that level of emotional connection with a human being, well, that's a pretty powerful force. Whether it's five years or ten years from now, I think it is coming," technologist David Auerbach said on "Fox & Friends Weekend" Saturday.

One of the biggest technological advances that we're about now is artificial intelligence,

Artificial intelligence "acts" unethically in ways that are different from humans, even if the harms that both AI and humans can cause are similar. For example, even if both humans and AI can invade people's privacy, discriminate, or cause physical harm, artificial intelligence does not act with intention to cause such harm. Rather, the harm results from how artificial intelligence collects and processes data. Currently, artificial intelligence cannot achieve consciousness, though one Google engineer disagrees. Today, the type of artificial intelligence that companies are creating and incorporating into their operations and decision systems is artificial narrow intelligence, which refers to a computer's ability to perform a single task or limited tasks extremely well.

If only there were tools that could build ethics into artificial intelligence applications. Developers and IT teams are under a lot of pressure to build AI capabilities into their company's touchpoints and decision-making systems. At the same time, there is a growing outcry that the AI being delivered is loaded with bias and built-in violations of privacy rights. There may be some very compelling tools and platforms that promise fair and balanced AI, but tools and platforms alone won't deliver ethical AI solutions, says Reid Blackman, who provides avenues to overcome thorny AI ethics issues in his upcoming book, Ethical Machines: Your Concise Guide to Totally Unbiased, Transparent and Respectful AI (Harvard Business Review Press). He provides ethics advice to developers working with AI because, in his own words, "tools are efficiently and effectively wielded when their users are equipped with the requisite knowledge, concepts, and training."

AI-generated output can't be explained. This is all true, and is happening today, and there's a risk of these issues accelerating as AI adoption grows. Before the lawsuits start flowing and government regulators start cracking down, organizations using AI need to become more proactive and formulate actionable AI ethics policies. But an effective AI ethics policy requires more than some feel-good statements. It requires actions, built into an AI ethics-aware culture.

As I've written in my "On AI Ethics," series, machine learning models that aim to mirror and predict real-life as closely as possible are not without their challenges. Household name brands like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google have been accused of algorithmic bias that have negatively affected society at large. While some organizations are investing in teams to ensure algorithmic accountability and ethics, Reid Blackman, CEO of Virtue and former professor of philosophy at Colgate University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says most are still falling short in ensuring their products perform ethically in the real world. "Despite reputational, regulatory, and legal risks, it's surprising how many companies that rely on AI/ML still lack the ability to identify, evaluate, and mitigate the associated ethical risks," says Blackman. "Teams end up either overlooking risks, scrambling to solve issues as they come up, or crossing their fingers in the hope that the problem will resolve itself."

I love fiction and non-fiction, I love paper books, audiobooks, e-books, comic books, whatever. And I live near a world-class library for easy access to all of the above. But since the COVID-19 pandemic changed everyone's lives, I'm struggling to get lost in their worlds. While reading, my mind invariably wanders to the outbreak. What I can do is play video games.

IBM (IBM) is serving up artificial intelligence at the 2019 U.S. Open to help tennis players get to the next level. At the Grand Slam tournament, long-time sponsorship partner IBM debuted its Coach Advisor, a new technology that employs artificial intelligence and analytics to develop and train tennis players. The tech measures things, like physical exertion and endurance, and correlates that data with video from the tennis match to produce insights for coaches. "The great thing about this project is it really gives us a new metric to look at to mine video and find out what data correlates with performance," Martin Blackman, the U.S. Tennis Association's general manager of player development told Yahoo Finance in an interview. It's revolutionary because typically, coaches rely on feedback from players and their own instincts.

Is it possible to predict the outcomes of legal cases – such as Supreme Court decisions – using Artificial Intelligence (AI)? I recently had the opportunity to consider this point at a talk that I gave entitled "Machine Learning Within Law" at Stanford. The general idea behind such approaches is to use computer-based analysis of existing data (e.g. The approach to using data to inform legal predictions (as opposed to pure lawyerly analysis) has been largely championed by Prof. Katz – something that he has dubbed "Quantitative Legal Prediction" in recent work.

Lincoln Clay, the lead character in Mafia III, is a protagonist rarely featured by the gaming industry. Lincoln Clay, the lead character in Mafia III, is a protagonist rarely featured by the gaming industry. On the surface all looks tranquil as you drive through the bustling city in your red Pontiac, tapping your foot to Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang." But as you take a sharp left down a winding back alley, an alarming sight gives you pause. Behind you, trucks painted with the Confederate flag begin to appear, the white men behind the wheel angry and visceral as they shout racial slurs.