Run this by your lawyers.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3628339/7-steps-to-protect-against-ransomware-related-lawsuits.html#tk.rss_all

7 steps to protect against ransomware-related lawsuits

International ransomware gangs aren't the only people after your enterprise's money. Long after a ransomware attack fades into gloomy history, your organization could face another potentially devastating financial threat: lawyers filing action lawsuits on behalf of clients who may have lost confidential personal or business information to the attackers.

Are all communication tools in violation?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/17/zoom_incompatible_with_gdpr_hamburg_warning/

Zoom incompatible with GDPR, claims data protection watchdog for the German city of Hamburg

The acting Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information has officially warned the city's Senate Chancellery not to use the on-demand version of Zoom's videoconferencing software.

Referring to the European Court of Justice Schrems II decision of July 2020, Ulrich Kühn claimed the software violates the EU General Data Protection Directive (GDPR) as "such use is associated with the transmission of personal data to the US."

… Neil Brown, director at tech-savvy virtual English law firm decoded.legal, told The Register he interpreted the "somewhat oblique" press release to mean the Hamburg DPA considers that Zoom "does not ensure a level of protection for personal data which is 'essentially equivalent' to that afforded by the GDPR."

A cautionary tale.

https://interestingengineering.com/how-algorithms-are-changing-justice

AI Could Send You to Jail: How Algorithms Are Changing Justice

Forensic AI is shrouded in the trade secrets of the companies who make it. Some want to change that.

Is dry cleaning a viable alternative to brain washing?

https://www.bespacific.com/bad-news-selling-the-story-of-disinformation/

Bad News – Selling the story of disinformation

Harper’s – “…The Commission on Information Disorder is the latest (and most creepily named) addition to a new field of knowledge production that emerged during the Trump years at the juncture of media, academia, and policy research: Big Disinfo. A kind of EPA for content, it seeks to expose the spread of various sorts of “toxicity” on social-media platforms, the downstream effects of this spread, and the platforms’ clumsy, dishonest, and half-hearted attempts to halt it. As an environmental cleanup project, it presumes a harm model of content consumption. Just as, say, smoking causes cancer, consuming bad information must cause changes in belief or behavior that are bad, by some standard. Otherwise, why care what people read and watch?

Perspective.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90666477/facial-recognition-misunderstanding

The great misunderstanding at the core of facial recognition

… In this essay, however, I examine how the technology of facial recognition is intertwined with other types of social and political recognition, as well as highlight how technologists’ efforts to “diversify” and “de-bias” facial recognition may actually exacerbate the discriminatory effects that they seek to resolve. Within the field of computer vision, the problem of biased facial recognition has been interpreted as a call to build more inclusive datasets and models. I argue that instead, researchers should critically interrogate what can’t or shouldn’t be recognized by computer vision.

… Ultimately, any computer-vision project is based on the premise that a person’s outsides can tell us something definitive about their insides. These are systems based solely on appearance, rather than identity, solidarity, or belonging. And while facial recognition may seem futuristic, the technology is fundamentally backward-looking, since its functioning depends on images of past selves and outmoded ways of classifying people. Looking forward, instead of asking how to make facial recognition better, perhaps the question should be: how do we want to be recognized?

A resource.

https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/14802-microsofts-machine-learning-for-beginners.html

Microsoft's Machine Learning for Beginners

A free, self-paced online course about Machine Learning is on offer from Microsoft's Azure Cloud Advocates. Its 24-lesson curriculum, expected to take 12-weeks to complete is targeted at those new to Machine Learning.

(Related) Another resource.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/18/mcubed_webcast_series_ep_one/

Free machine-learning lessons from The Register – starting with Benford’s distribution

Tune in on the first Thursday of every month to learn about algorithms, tools, and services from field experts

… In our new, free MCubed webcast series, we’ll bring you up to speed with the latest ML development-related tools, libraries, and cloud service news, before jumping into hand-selected expert talks. Through those, practitioners will help you freshen up on the basics, share serviceable advice from their day to day work, and provide insight into the issues they’re trying to solve.

The goal of every session is to have you walk away with some nuggets of knowledge useful enough to enhance your daily machine-learning practice. Professor Mark Whitehorn will kick off the new format on September 2, 2021 at 11am BST with an introduction to Benford’s distribution.

… We’re looking forward to seeing you on September 2: Sign up here and we will remind you on the day.

Tools for the smartphone addict?

https://www.makeuseof.com/beginners-guide-lapdocks-how-to-use-your-phone-as-a-laptop/

A Beginner’s Guide to Lapdocks: How to Use Your Phone as a Laptop

With smartphones becoming increasingly powerful, why do we still lug around heavy laptops or additional hardware when our pocket devices perform the same functions as computers?

Enter the lapdock—a device you can use to transform your smartphone into a laptop. With a lapdock, you could eliminate the need for a traditional computer.

Read on to learn about lapdocks, including what they are, how to use them, and how they could replace your laptop.

Some tools & techniques that may be useful in other types of research?

https://www.bespacific.com/investigative-tactics-that-reporters-love/

Investigative Tactics That Reporters Love

Global Investigative Journalism Network: “Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to interview dozens of investigative journalists about their favorite tools and techniques. In a series of stories, their tips have shown our global audience of reporters that there are scores of muckraking tactics that can help their reporting, and that effective digital tools constantly emerge that can help them dig. But again and again, these top muckrakers point to roughly two dozen techniques that assist in almost all of their investigations, and consistently impress with their effectiveness. Most of these require no cost or computer science skills, and some involve the simplest adjustments to allow investigators to access tough sources or find elusive evidence. In part two of this piece next week, I’ll list the dozen tools that have emerged as common favorites for many reporters. But here, in part one, I list the dozen tactics and approaches that leading investigative journalists commonly rave about…”

Is the US treasury ready? Would Wall Street panic?

https://www.databreaches.net/brazilian-national-treasury-hit-with-ransomware-attack/

Brazilian National Treasury hit with ransomware attack

Angelica Mari reports:

The Brazilian government has released a note stating the National Treasury has been hit with a ransomware attack on Friday (13).

According to a statement from the Ministry of Economy, initial measures to contain the impact of the cyberattack were immediately taken. The first assessments so far have found there was no damage to the structuring systems of the National Treasury, such as the platforms relating to public debt administration.

Read more on ZDNet.

(Related) This is the Department charged with securing the Treasury…

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/secret-terrorist-watchlist-with-2-million-records-exposed-online/

Secret terrorist watchlist with 2 million records exposed online

A secret terrorist watchlist with 1.9 million records, including classified "no-fly" records was exposed on the internet.

The list was left accessible on an Elasticsearch cluster that had no password on it.

… The researcher discovered the exposed database on July 19th, interestingly, on a server with a Bahrain IP address, not a US one.

However, the same day, he rushed to report the data leak to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

"I discovered the exposed data on the same day and reported it to the DHS."

"The exposed server was taken down about three weeks later, on August 9, 2021."

A California law, gleefully followed by British e-news…

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/17/ccpa_blackbaud/

Blackbaud – firm that paid off crooks after 2020 ransomware attack – fails to get California privacy law claim dropped

A judge in South Carolina has struck out a number of claims in a consolidated class-action suit alleging cloud CRM provider Blackbaud didn't do enough to prevent a 2020 ransomware attack, but allegations under California's Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will move forward.

Blackbaud, a cloud software provider that sells CRM systems for fundraising and communications to charities and educational institutions, admitted last year that it had paid off a ransomware attacker that hit its servers with file-encrypting software in May.

It said at the time: "The cybercriminal did not access credit card information, bank account information, or social security numbers."

However, in a September 2020 US stock market 8-K filing [PDF ], Blackbaud said the ransomware infection had potentially resulted in miscreants making off with banking details.

According to an order filed last week by the judge hearing the consolidated class-action case in the district of Columbia, South Carolina, the complainants allege the CRM firm "failed to comply with industry and regulatory standards by neglecting to implement security measures to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access, utilizing outdated servers, storing obsolete data, and maintaining unencrypted data fields."

The case – which deals with more than 15 lawsuits by 34 plaintiffs across 20 states – was consolidated into a single complaint in April by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

US district judge J Michelle Childs said in a 33-page ruling [PDF ] that "Blackbaud's alleged registration as a 'data broker' suggests that it is also a 'business' under the CCPA." The firm had previously argued it did not qualify as a "business" regulated by the CCPA,

… The CCPA claim, if successful, could net statutory damages of up to $750 per violation for the California plaintiffs.

Potential hacking tools for self-driving vehicles?

https://www.unite.ai/optical-adversarial-attack-can-change-the-meaning-of-road-signs/

Optical Adversarial Attack Can Change the Meaning of Road Signs

Researchers in the US have developed an adversarial attack against the ability of machine learning systems to correctly interpret what they see – including mission-critical items such as road signs – by shining patterned light onto real world objects. In one experiment, the approach succeeded in causing the meaning of a ‘STOP’ roadside sign to be transformed into a ’30mph’ speed limit sign.

The opposite of one worldwide legal environment.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3629389/data-sovereignty-laws-place-new-burdens-on-cisos.html#tk.rss_all

Data sovereignty laws place new burdens on CISOs

More than 100 countries now require data on their citizens be stored or processed within their boundaries, presenting new data protection challenges.

… Oracle describes how “the exponential growth of data crossing borders and public cloud regions [has seen], more than 100 countries now have passed regulations.” There is no one-size-fits-all set of rules and therein lays the conundrum for CISOs, especially those whose customer base or digital infrastructure crosses political boundaries.

In a paper published on August 3. Professor Susan Ariel Aaronson of George Washington University commented how under the guise of digital sovereignty, “governments are seeking to regulate commercial use of personal data without enacting clear rules governing public sector use of data.”

In a 2020 “ideas paper,” the EU described digital sovereignty as “Europe's ability to act independently in the digital world and should be understood in terms of both protective mechanisms and offensive tools to foster digital innovation (including in cooperation with non-EU companies).”

I’m sure the FBI is upset, because this is also true for domestic terrorists and the political party in opposition to President Biden.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93yvy5/whatsapp-says-its-not-banning-the-taliban-because-it-cant-read-their-texts

WhatsApp Can't Ban the Taliban Because It Can't Read Their Texts

As it quickly took control of the county, the Taliban used Facebook-owned chat app WhatsApp to spread its message and gain favor among local citizens, according to news reports as well as Afghan citizens and observers on the ground,

A WhatsApp spokesperson declined to answer a series of specific questions about WhatsApp's role and response to the Taliban using its platform.

The company spokesperson said that WhatsApp complies with U.S. sanctions law, so if it encounters any sanctioned people or organizations using the app, it will take action, including banning the accounts. This obviously depends on identifying who uses WhatsApp, without having access to any of the messages sent through the platform, given that the app uses end-to-end encryption. This would explain why WhatsApp hasn’t taken action against some account spreading the Taliban’s message in Afghanistan.

Perspective.

https://mindmatters.ai/2021/08/whats-behind-chinas-crackdown-on-big-tech/

WHAT’S BEHIND CHINA’S CRACKDOWN ON BIG TECH?

In a previous article I looked at Chinese regulators’ crackdown on Didi Global, China’s ride-hailing service. Didi is one of several Chinese tech giants that have been tamed in the past nine months. Prior to Didi, Ant Group, Tencent, Meituan, and Pinduoduo were all quelled by regulators. After Didi, regulators targeted Full Truck Alliance and Kanzhun. They recently shut down online for-profit tutoring and have banned mining cryptocurrencies in China.

Thus far, the Chinese government’s actions have resulted in almost $1 trillion net losses for the Chinese tech sector.

The two big questions are, Why now? and, relatedly, Who’s next?

SupChina has a well-organized explainer on China’s Big Tech Crackdown here.

Another helpful resource is this video from DW, “How China is tightening control of its tech companies”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l7m7OYO5Is

(Related)

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3145249/didis-business-slows-break-neck-pace-site-probes-chinas-cybersecurity

Didi’s business slows from break-neck pace as on-site probes by China’s cybersecurity regulators gum up operations

The Chinese government’s unprecedented probes into Didi-Chuxing, also involving public security investigators, have gummed up business operations at the platform that dominated 90 per cent of the country’s ride-hailing industry, according to several employees.

Engineers and product managers at the Beijing company, whose smartphone apps were removed from Android and Apple app stores in early July, are now busy writing up patches to close what Chinese regulators called technical loopholes in Didi’s data management system, according to staff who spoke on condition of anonymity.

… Investigators, who sequestered themselves into Didi’s head office in the Zhongguancun Software Park in the northwestern corner of the Chinese capital, have called mid-level staff in for hours of questioning, even on weekends and at short notice, employees said.

Tools & Techniques. It’s not just for stalkers…

https://www.makeuseof.com/chrome-extensions-finding-email-addresses/

The 7 Best Chrome Extensions for Finding Anyone’s Email Address

Did T-Mobile notice the hack or the huge download?

https://gizmodo.com/hacker-claims-to-have-data-on-more-than-100-million-t-m-1847491056

Hacker Claims to Have Data on More Than 100 Million T-Mobile Customers, Asks for $277,000

A hacker is claiming to have data related to more than 100 million T-Mobile customers in the U.S. and is selling access to part of the information for roughly $277,000.

Motherboard reported on Sunday that the hacker revealed they had the data on an underground forum, although they didn’t specify the information was related to T-Mobile in the post. When contacted by the outlet, the hacker said in an online chat that they had compromised multiple T-Mobile servers and had “full customer info.” They claim the data include social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver license information.

Motherboard said it had seen samples of the data and confirmed they contained accurate information on T-Mobile customers.

… “I think they already found out because we lost access to the backdoored servers,” the hacker told Motherboard.

Nonetheless, the hacker said they wouldn’t be affected by T-Mobile’s actions because they had already downloaded and backed up the stolen data in multiple places.

I missed this one. I’m not clear, just an insider error? No backups?

https://apnews.com/article/texas-ee36d24e32f1dff69c2fa1c4b45a9e1e

Texas murder suspect granted bond after police data loss

A Texas man who was scheduled for trial on a murder charge this week was instead granted release on bond amid temporary concern that material in his case might be among troves of police data lost from the Dallas department’s computer system.

A Dallas County judge granted Jonathan Pitts bond Thursday after prosecutors asked the judge to delay his trial as they worked with police to determine whether case material was part of the information lost while the Dallas Police Department was moving data from a computer network drive. It was not immediately clear when Pitts would be freed from jail.

The release of Pitts, who is charged in the 2019 shooting of Shun Handy, was ordered as authorities race to determine how many cases may have had evidence vanish in the eight-terabyte data loss.

… White granted Pitts release without paying bail because state law requires a person be freed if prosecutors aren’t ready at the time of the trial, his defense attorney, George Ashford III, told The Dallas Morning News.

… City information technology officials became aware of the problem on April 5. But the police and city IT departments did not reveal it to the district attorney’s office until last Friday, after prosecutors inquired why they could not find computer files on pending cases.

The lost data included images, video, audio, case notes and other information gathered by police officers and detectives, police said in an earlier statement. A city IT employee was moving the files, which had not been accessed for the previous six to 18 months, from an online, cloud-based archive to a server at the city’s data center. The “employee failed to follow proper, established procedures, resulting in the deletion of the data files,” police said.

Not total agreement, but some common goals.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3628188/cisos-15-top-strategic-priorities-for-2021.html#tk.rss_all

CISOs’ 15 top strategic priorities for 2021

… Some 64% of CISOs fear their companies are at risk of a major cybersecurity attack in the upcoming year and 66% feel their organization is unprepared to handle it, according to the 2021 Voice of the CISO Report from security software maker Proofpoint.

… Of course, each CISO has his or her own security roadmap, but common elements have emerged. According to CISOs, analysts and security leaders, the typical CISO priority list today has many or most of these 15 items:

I’m not convinced they are as bad at surveillance as they claim. Is it just about expanding coverage? What else might be going on here?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/homeland-security-considers-outside-firms-to-analyze-social-media-after-jan-6-failure-11629025200?mod=djemalertNEWS

Homeland Security Considers Outside Firms to Analyze Social Media After Jan. 6 Failure

Effort has spurred civil-rights debates at DHS and White House, would expand government’s handling of social-media data

… The initiative comes after the nation’s intelligence community failed to sufficiently identify and share signs of the threats that led to the assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.

John Cohen, a top DHS official, is spearheading the project, which he describes as part of an upgrade to the department’s capabilities in social-media analysis. Marshaling the expertise of outside companies and ramping up internal capabilities are central to that effort, he said.

“What we’re talking about now is dramatically expanding our focus,” Mr. Cohen said in an interview.

… The basis of DHS’s legal authority for the proposed expanded effort remains murky, said one person involved in the discussions, in part because “the definition of what is public is not necessarily settled.”

Now that’s a good question. Start small, grow to wide acceptance before the lawyers start objecting?

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58158820

Would you let a robot lawyer defend you?

Joshua Browder describes his app DoNotPay as "the world's first robot lawyer".

It helps users draft legal letters. You tell its chatbot what your problem is, such as appealing against a parking fine, and it will suggest what it thinks is the best legal language to use.

"People can type in their side of an argument using their own words, and software with a machine learning model matches that with a legally correct way of saying it," he says.

The 24-year-old and his company are based in Silicon Valley in California, but the firm's origins go back to London in 2015, when Mr Browder was 18.

… Since then the app has spread across the UK and US, and it can now help the user write letters dealing with a range of issues; insurance claims, applying for tourist visas, complaint letters to a business or local authority, getting your money back for a holiday you can no longer go on or cancelling gym membership. Mr Browder says the last two uses soared during the pandemic.

DoNotPay now claims to have 150,000 paying subscribers. And while it has its critics, with some saying its legal advice is not accurate enough, last year it won an award from the American Bar Association for increasing legal access.

Mr Browder claims an 80% overall success rate, down to 65% for parking tickets, because "'some people are guilty".

A Financial Times Podcast.

https://www.ft.com/content/3633d8e7-774f-4432-a138-97e0c43976da

AI with military characteristics

Last year, the Pentagon watched closely as a human fighter pilot lost to an AI-powered adversary in a simulated dogfight. The US military is working to innovate faster as technology changes the nature of warfare. But many worry it has already fallen behind its main adversary, China. What does AI mean for military might, and how are debates over autonomous weapons unfolding in diplomatic backchannels? In the final episode of this season's Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thornhill is joined by US-China correspondent Demetri Sevastopulo for a dive into military AI. We hear from Colonel Daniel “Animal” Javorsek, former deputy defence secretary Robert O Work, Elsa B Kania of the Center for a New American Security, and David Edelman, who works on AI and public policy at MIT.

https://sphinx.acast.com/ft-tech-tonic/aiwithmilitarycharacteristics/media.mp3

Were the drivers arrested/charged? A clear case of ‘undue reliance?’

https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-ap-top-news-61557d668b646e7ef48c5543d3a1c66c

US opens formal probe into Tesla Autopilot system

The U.S. government has opened a formal investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot partially automated driving system after a series of collisions with parked emergency vehicles.

The investigation covers 765,000 vehicles, almost everything that Tesla has sold in the U.S. since the start of the 2014 model year. Of the crashes identified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of the investigation, 17 people were injured and one was killed.

NHTSA says it has identified 11 crashes since 2018 in which Teslas on Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control have hit vehicles at scenes where first responders have used flashing lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board or cones warning of hazards. The agency announced the action Monday in a posting on its website.

… The NTSB also recommended that NHTSA require Tesla to have a better system to make sure drivers are paying attention. NHTSA has not taken action on any of the recommendations.

I must ask, is there really a need? What works?

https://www.bespacific.com/can-technology-help-authors-write-a-book/

Can technology help authors write a book?

BBC – “Every year around the world a whopping 2.2 million books are published, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), which monitors the number. The figure includes both fiction and non-fiction titles. For most of these authors the writing process is relatively unchanged since Twain’s heyday in the late 19th Century. Plot outlines and ideas are written down to be deciphered, developed and refined over time. These days, however, technology is increasingly making the life of an author a little easier. For Michael Green, a US data scientist turned novelist, the need to use technology to simplify and streamline the writing process came when he was in the middle of writing his first book..”

A law in need of an update?

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/14/how-the-law-got-it-wrong-with-apple-card/

How the law got it wrong with Apple Card

Advocates of algorithmic justice have begun to see their proverbial “days in court” with legal investigations of enterprises like UHG and Apple Card. The Apple Card case is a strong example of how current anti-discrimination laws fall short of the fast pace of scientific research in the emerging field of quantifiable fairness.

While it may be true that Apple and their underwriters were found innocent of fair lending violations, the ruling came with clear caveats that should be a warning sign to enterprises using machine learning within any regulated space. Unless executives begin to take algorithmic fairness more seriously, their days ahead will be full of legal challenges and reputational damage.

… And yet, there is no doubt in my mind that the Goldman/Apple algorithm discriminates, along with every other credit scoring and underwriting algorithm on the market today. Nor do I doubt that these algorithms would fall apart if researchers were ever granted access to the models and data we would need to validate this claim. I know this because the NY DFS partially released its methodology for vetting the Goldman algorithm, and as you might expect, their audit fell far short of the standards held by modern algorithm auditors today.

This may be a repeat, but worth repeating.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/08/13/ai-weekly-the-road-to-ethical-adoption-of-ai/

AI Weekly: The road to ethical adoption of AI

As new principles emerge to guide the development ethical, safe, and inclusive AI, the industry faces self-inflicted challenges. Increasingly, there are many sets of guidelines — the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s AI repository alone hosts more than 100 documents — that are vague and high-level. And while a number of tools are available, most come without actionable guidance on how to use, customize, and troubleshoot them.

This is cause for alarm, because as the coauthors of a recent paper write, AI’s impacts are hard to assess — especially when they have second- and third-order effects. Ethics discussions tend to focus on futuristic scenarios that may not come to pass and unrealistic generalizations that make the conversations untenable. In particular, companies run the risk of engaging in “ethics shopping,” “ethics washing,” or “ethics shirking,” in which they ameliorate their position with customers to build trust while minimizing accountability.

A summary of AI laws.

https://www.gibsondunn.com/artificial-intelligence-and-automated-systems-legal-update-2q21/

Artificial Intelligence and Automated Systems Legal Update (2Q21)

Click for PDF

Our 2Q21 Artificial Intelligence and Automated Systems Legal Update focuses on these key regulatory efforts, and also examines other policy developments within the U.S. and EU that may be of interest to domestic and international companies alike.[3]

Perspective. How to get from here to there?

https://thenextweb.com/news/create-artificial-general-intelligence-we-need-reevaluate-intelligence-syndication

To achieve AGI, we need new perspectives on intelligence

… In a paper that was presented at the Brain-Inspired Cognitive Architectures for Artificial Intelligence (BICA*AI), Sathyanaraya Raghavachary, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, discusses “considered response,” a theory that can generalize to all forms of intelligent life that have evolved and thrived on our planet.

Titled, “Intelligence—consider this and respond!” the paper sheds light on the possible causes of the troubles that have haunted the AI community for decades and draws important conclusions, including the consideration of embodiment as a prerequisite for AGI.

Perspective.

https://philpapers.org/rec/RYAEAA-2

Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

In Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. pp. 1-5 (2021)

A subdiscipline has emerged around AI ethics, which is comprised of a wide array of individuals: computer scientists, ethicists, cognitive scientists, roboticists, legal professionals, economists, sociologists, gender, and race theorists. This has led to a very interesting branch of research, addressing issues surrounding the development and use of AI. This chapter will give a very brief snapshot of some of the most pertinent ethical concerns. Many of the issues in the Big Data Ethics chapter in this collection are often applicable to AI ethics, because of the data that these technologies retrieve, store, and use, so will not be duplicated here. While data-related issues are not new or unique to AI, AI does hold the potential to dramatically retrieve and analyze data that would not be possible otherwise. Data is being used in unique and transformative ways, such as the use of facial recognition to identify individuals from photos or CCTV; AI robots to retrieve live video feed about the patient(s) that it is monitoring; or in new ways, such as self-driving cars collecting an abundance of data about our surroundings, how we drive, and passengers in the car. There is the potential to infringe on individuals’ privacy, restriction of resources, or at worst, the creation of a surveillance society.

Perspective.

http://27.109.7.66:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/673/The%20Interface%20Between%20Law%20and%20Technology%20.pdf?sequence=1

The Interface between Law and Technology

There is no gainsaying that advancements in science and technology have had a massive impact in the advancement of the law and legal techniques. This is no better exemplified than by our advancements in the field of forensic technology. Indeed, advancements in forensic technology have highly optimised our investigative tools making criminal investigation more potent and penetrative. This is especially true in the case of DNA profiling. The use of DNA samples has proven to be an effective investigative tool and this technique has successfully aided in identifying “unknown victims, suspects, and serial offenders” and in some case it has also helped in releasing wrongfully charged or convicted individuals. The fact is contemporary DNA profiling methods are based on scientifically approved research standards. Thus, the DNA backed evidence are not only accurate but at times the only method to come to a conclusion. There are caveats, however, and even the most advanced scientific procedure can mislead us in our search for justice. While the caveat may apply to overreliance of on technologies for dealing with our legal issues, it also equally applies to wrongful or erroneous use of technology for dealing with legal issues. History is replete with examples of how the erroneous use of technological tools have impacted our fundamental freedoms including life. In this context Petherick observes that in most cases this occurs,

when experts do not avail themselves of all available evidence, when they are oblivious or unaware of evidence that exists, when experts are not aware of their own shortcomings, or where bias or cognitive distortion taint the expert’s opinion, even in cases where the evidence may be pristine or voluminous.

Answer only one question: Under what circumstances should my self-driving car kill me rather than the other guy?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3902217

Autonomous Vehicles, Moral Hazards & the "AV Problem"

The autonomous vehicle (“AV”) industry faces the following ethical question: “How do we know when our AV technology is safe enough to deploy at scale?” The search for an answer to this question is the “AV Problem.” This essay examines that question through the lens of the July 15, 2021 filing on Form S-4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the going public transaction for Aurora Inventions, Inc.

The filing reveals that successful implementation of Aurora’s business plan in the long term depends on the truth of the following proposition: A vehicle controlled by a machine driver is safer than a vehicle controlled by a human driver (the “Safety Proposition”).

In a material omission for which securities law liability may attach, the S-4 fails to state Aurora’s position on deployment: will Aurora delay deployment until such time as it believes the Safety Proposition is true to a reasonable certainty or will it deploy at scale earlier in the hope that increased current losses will be offset by anticipated future safety gains?

The Safety Proposition is a statement about physical probability which is either true or false. For success, AV companies need the public to believe the Safety Proposition, yet belief is not the same as truth. The difference between truth and belief creates tension in the S-4 because the filing both fosters a belief in the Safety Proposition while at the same time making clear there is insufficient evidence to support the truth of the Safety Proposition.

A moral hazard results when financial pressures push for early deployment of AV systems before evidence shows that the Safety Proposition is true to a reasonable certainty. This problem is analyzed by comparison with the famous trolley problem in ethics and consideration of corporate governance techniques which an AV company might use to ensure the integrity of its decision process for deployment. The AV industry works to promote belief in the safety proposition in the hope that the public will accept that AV technology has benefits, thus avoiding the need to confront the truth of the Safety Proposition directly. This hinders a meaningful public debate about the merits and timing of deployment of AV technology, raising the question of whether there is a place for meaningful government regulation.