Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere, powering applications such as smart assistants, spam filters and search engines. The technology offers multiple advantages to businesses – such as the ability to provide a more personalised experience for customers. AI can also boost business efficiency and improve security by helping to predict and mitigate cyber-attacks. But while AI offers benefits, the technology poses significant risks to privacy, including the potential to de-anonymise data. Recent research revealed AI-based deep learning models are able to determine the race of patients based on radiologic images such as chest x-rays or mammograms – and with "significantly better" accuracy than human experts.

Artificial Intelligence is currently playing a significant role in our everyday life. Whether we're trying to classify plant species, Netflix viewing preferences or mortgage suitability, we depend on AI to handle it all for us. While having AI make everyday decisions for us is somewhat acceptable, using machines to determine guilt or innocence in court may seem a step too far. But the Estonian government doesn't think so. According to Wired, the Estonian Ministry of Justice has officially asked the country's chief data officer, Ott Velsberg, to design a robot judge.

Government usually isn't the place to look for innovation in IT or new technologies like artificial intelligence. But Ott Velsberg might change your mind. As Estonia's chief data officer, the 28-year-old graduate student is overseeing the tiny Baltic nation's push to insert artificial intelligence and machine learning into services provided to its 1.3 million citizens. "We want the government to be as lean as possible," says the wiry, bespectacled Velsberg, an Estonian who is writing his PhD thesis at Sweden's Umeå University on using the Internet of Things and sensor data in government services. Estonia's government hired Velsberg last August to run a new project to introduce AI into various ministries to streamline services offered to residents.

Ott Velsberg, Estonia's fresh-faced, 28-year-old chief data officer, is on a mission put AI into every part of the country's public services, from healthcare to education and job centres. "The aim is to make government more proactive and responsive to people's life-events," says Velsberg. Instead of citizens having to apply for things like driver's licences and school places, he envisions a system where public bodies can anticipate and preemptively respond to the needs people have at different stages of their life. "We're not telling people what to do. That might happen in China but not in Estonia, or in Europe as a whole."

Government usually isn't the place to look for innovation in IT or new technologies like artificial intelligence. But Ott Velsberg might change your mind. As Estonia's chief data officer, the 28-year-old graduate student is overseeing the tiny Baltic nation's push to insert artificial intelligence and machine learning into services provided to its 1.3 million citizens. "We want the government to be as lean as possible," says the wiry, bespectacled Velsberg, an Estonian who is writing his PhD thesis at Sweden's Umeå University on using the Internet of Things and sensor data in government services. Estonia's government hired Velsberg last August to run a new project to introduce AI into various ministries to streamline services offered to residents.

Estonia is building an artificial intelligence powered robo-judge that will rule over a backlog of small court cases. It will be fed legal documents and analyse them before coming to a decision based on its pre-programmed algorithms and training. The'robot judge' would preside over disputes of less than €7,000 (£6,000/$8,000) and free up more time for humans to work on bigger cases. Any ruling would be legally binding but could be appealed to a human judge. The project and technology is still in its infancy and no set date has been announced for its roll-out, but the larger AI project it is part of will announce its results in May.

Government usually isn't the place to look for innovation in IT or new technologies like artificial intelligence. But Ott Velsberg might change your mind. As Estonia's chief data officer, the 28-year-old graduate student is overseeing the tiny Baltic nation's push to insert artificial intelligence and machine learning into services provided to its 1.3 million citizens. "We want the government to be as lean as possible," says the wiry, bespectacled Velsberg, an Estonian who is writing his PhD thesis at Sweden's Umeå University on how to use AI in government services. Estonia's government hired Velsberg last August to run a new project to introduce AI into various ministries to streamline services offered to residents.