Public Knowledge, a Washington, DC advocacy group, today released a paper calling for the formation of a new federal government authority to develop expertise and capacity on artificial intelligence (AI), to be able to effectively regulate and govern these technologies in the future. The paper, The Inevitability of AI Law & Policy: Preparing Government for the Era of Autonomous Machines, was released on 31 October and written by Ryan Clough, general counsel at Public Knowledge. The paper "argues that the rapid and pervasive rise of artificial intelligence risks exploiting the most marginalized and vulnerable in our society." In order to mitigate these harms, a new national authority on AI will be needed, it says, to "provide the rest of the government with the expertise and experience needed to achieve five goals crucial to building ethical AI systems:

United States and Chinese patent practitioners this week called for considerations to change patent legislation and allow patenting algorithms in the future. They spoke at a 30 May conference of the European Patent Office in Munich on "Patenting Artificial Intelligence." Please login or subscribe to read the full story.

The second edition of an annual global summit on "artificial intelligence for good" spearheaded by the UN International Telecommunication Union opened today. A focus of the summit is how artificial intelligence can help advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The opening statements by UN heads, including the World Health Organization, showed growing interest in new technology to help in all kinds of areas such as health and agriculture. Please login or subscribe to read the full story.

The steady increase in innovations relating to new digital technologies, in particular technologies using artificial intelligence, is matched by an upward patenting trend. The European Patent Office recently issued a study on the subject and is preparing a conference in May, while the World Intellectual Property Organization is working on its own in-depth study. However, the current patent system might not be ready for artificial intelligence-related inventions, according to a global standards-setting body. Please login or subscribe to read the full story.

The desire of countries to hop on the train of artificial intelligence and get a piece of the pie might be contrary to democracy, according to a speaker at this week's Internet Governance Forum. Even though artificial intelligence has the potential to improve lives around the globe, the challenges which come with it are complex and difficult to address, said the speakers. Please login or subscribe to read the full story.

Your brand is everything in the global marketplace. It is no exaggeration to say that a business now lives and dies by both its offline, online and social reputation. Because of this, searching a trademark is more vital than ever before. It is important for trademark professionals to work faster and more effectively in searching, clearing and registering strong marks to ensure clients have a competitive advantage. To do so requires the merging of the old and new: the specific knowledge that only highly experienced trademark experts can provide, with the advantages of the latest wave of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Who thought that the laws of robotics described by famous science fiction author Isaac Asimov would one day resonate with real life issues on robots? Last week's summit on artificial intelligence sought to imagine a world increasingly manned by machines and robots, even self-taught ones, and explore the legal, ethical, economic, and social consequences of this new world. And some panellists underlined a need to establish frameworks to manage this new species. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) for Good Global Summit took place from 7-9 June. It does not take a big stretch of imagination to realise that life with robots will change quite a few things, and the global summit looked at privacy, security, ethics and societal challenges brought by AI to the future society during a panel held on 8 June.

"Artificial intelligence is as a weapon" and we have to deal with it "as we deal with other weapons," Cindy Smith, director of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), said during a panel discussion at an artificial intelligence summit in Geneva this week. The panel discussion focused on preparing a roadmap to ensure that artificial intelligence develops in "a safe, responsible and, an ethical manner" that benefits all the different segments of our society. Please login or subscribe to read the full story.