The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is reviewing hundreds of state parole hearings to see if any inmates who were denied parole were rejected because of faulty drug tests. Nearly 6,000 drug tests in California prisons are believed to have yielded false positives between April and July last year, and attorneys for the Board of Parole are now conducting a review of inmate files to determine if any of them need to appear before the parole board again to be reconsidered, according to officials with CDCR. If any inmates were denied parole because of the faulty tests, they could be owed a new hearing before the parole board, said attorneys representing inmates affected by the defective drug tests. The review is already underway and will determine if "without the positive drug screening, there is sufficient evidence to support an incarcerated person's denial of parole," said CDCR spokesperson Emily Humpal in a statement. If there isn't enough evidence to support incarceration other than the drug test, a new hearing will be scheduled.

Nine of 12 members of an ethics board appointed by Axon to advise its technology decisions have resigned, citing the company's plan to install Taser-equipped drones and pervasive surveillance at schools. "After several years of work, the company has fundamentally failed to embrace the values that we have tried to instill," the departing members write. "We have lost faith in Axon's ability to be a responsible partner." Axon (formerly Taser) has grown into a juggernaut of law enforcement software and hardware in recent years, providing not just the familiar and formerly eponymous electric weapons but body cameras and entire digital platforms for evidence management. Setting aside for now the inherent risks of privatizing such things, Axon has been rather surprisingly thoughtful with its tech, soliciting the advice of the communities these tools will be used in as well as the cops who will wear or wield them.

In his application, Stephen Thaler stated that the related work was created autonomously by the "creativity machine" algorithm, and it is a work created by the "work made for hire" doctrine, and that he filed the application by being the proprietor of the machine following the assignment declaration he submitted. On the other hand, Thaler requested reconsideration of this decision stating that it is unconstitutional to require a "human authorship" requirement for registration and that such a requirement is neither included in the law nor the case law. In the subsequent examination, the Office again rejected these requests, reiterating its initial assessments and stating that Thaler did not provide evidence to prove that human-provided sufficient creative contribution to the relevant work or that the human intervention had taken place. Therefore, he argued that the Office's refusal grounds were based on old views that did not address current needs. Evaluating this second request for reconsideration, the Board stated that the law protects the fruits of intellectual labour.

Rajiv Malhotra was trained initially as a Physicist, and then as a Computer Scientist specializing in AI in the 1970s. After a successful corporate career in the US, he became an entrepreneur and founded and ran several IT companies in 20 countries. Since the early 1990s, as the founder of his non-profit Infinity Foundation (Princeton, USA), he has been researching civilizations and their engagement with technology from a historical, social sciences and mind sciences perspective. He has authored several best-selling books. Infinity Foundation has also published a 14-volume series on the History of Indian Science & Technology.

The ACM constitution provides that our Association hold a general election in the even-numbered years for the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer, and Members-at-Large. Biographical information and statements of the candidates appear on the following pages (candidates' names appear in random order). In addition to the election of ACM's officers--President, Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer--two Members-at-Large will be elected to serve on ACM Council. The 2022 candidates for ACM President, Yannis Ioannidis and Joseph A. Konstan, are working together to solicit and answer questions from the computing community! Please refer to the instructions posted at https://vote.escvote.com/acm. Please note the election email will be addressed from acmhelp@mg.electionservicescorp.com. Please return your ballot in the enclosed envelope, which must be signed by you on the outside in the space provided. The signed ballot envelope may be inserted into a separate envelope for mailing if you prefer this method. All ballots must be received by no later than 16:00 UTC on 23 May 2022. Validation by the Elections Committee will take place at 14:00 UTC on 25 May 2022. Yannis Ioannidis is Professor of Informatics & Telecom at the U. of Athens, Greece (since 1997). Prior to that, he was a professor of Computer Sciences at the U. of Wisconsin-Madison (1986-1997).

A new partnership has been formed between Paravision and HID Global to combine the former's facial recognition and biometric liveness detection with the latter's hardware, integration, software and services. The partners plan to build enterprise-grade solutions under the HID brand for biometric access control to a range of applications across the retail, banking, air travel and healthcare sectors. The integrated solutions will offer high security with GDPR-compliant privacy protection, according to a promotional video posted to LinkedIn. Paravision President and COO Benji Hutchinson told Biometric Update in an email that the company sees the partnership with HID as a major step towards expanding its global footprint in both the public and commercial sectors. "There will be strong commercial growth as face recognition, identity, and computer vision software proliferates a number of non-traditional (outside of government sector) platforms," Hutchinson predicts.

Cities are looking at a number of solutions to these problems. Some require disclosure when an AI model is used in decisions, while others mandate audits of algorithms, track where AI causes harm or seek public input before putting new AI systems in place. What would you like to see cities do to make their use of AI more transparent and fair? It will take time for cities and local bureaucracies to build expertise in these areas and figure out how to craft the best regulations, says Joanna Bryson, a professor of ethics and technology at the Hertie School in Berlin. But such efforts could provide a model for other cities, and even nations that are trying to craft standards of their own, she says.

"Artificial intelligence and machine learning systems have become increasingly essential for advancing scholarly, research, and industrial missions …

If you ask business leaders whether their workers want to use artificial intelligence, most will assume the answer is "no." They presume workers see AI as invasive, or too complicated, or as putting their jobs at risk. Yet contrary to this popular belief, people who are employed are generally positive about AI. They believe it can help them avoid mistakes and solve problems, and they generally think it can make the world a better place. Don't get me wrong: There's a strong undercurrent of concern in the US workforce about AI.

Hosted by Ben Byford, The Machine Ethics Podcast brings together interviews with academics, authors, business leaders, designers and engineers on the subject of autonomous algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and technology's impact on society. Merve Hickok is the Senior Research Director of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, and the Founder of AIethicist.org. She is a social researcher, consultant and trainer on AI ethics & policy. Her work on AI is focused on bias, social justice, DE&I, public interest and participatory development and governance. She aims to create awareness, build capacity, and advocate for ethical and responsible development & use of AI.