Courts consider limits on AI evidence

A newly proposed rule by the Federal Judicial Conference could reshape how AI-generated evidence is treated in court. Dubbed Rule 707, it would allow such machine-generated evidence to be admitted only if it meets the same reliability standards required of expert testimony under Rule 702.

However, it would not apply to outputs from simple scientific instruments or widely used commercial software. The rule aims to address concerns about the reliability and transparency of AI-driven analysis, especially when used without a supporting expert witness.

Critics argue that the limitation to non-expert presentation renders the rule overly narrow, as the underlying risks of bias and interpretability persist regardless of whether an expert is involved. They suggest that all machine-generated evidence in US courts should be subject to robust scrutiny.

The Advisory Committee is also considering the scope of terminology such as ‘machine learning’ to prevent Rule 707 from encompassing more than intended. Meanwhile, a separate proposed rule regarding deepfakes has been shelved because courts already have tools to address the forgery.

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Could digital diplomacy, science, and stats bring peace to Ukraine?

Two Spanish scientists question the thesis of ‘two Ukraine’: pro-West or pro-Russian by analysing a data set on violent events in Ukraine since January 2021.

The analysis shows that conflicts can arise from many factors beyond simple East-West binary optics and the solution is not to split Ukraine in two.

According to the authors, lack of data is the greatest problem in this scientific method.

As opposed to other fields, like engineering, obtaining reliable and high-quality data about social and political events is a major challenge.

The greatest challenge to using statistical models and scientific methods in diplomacy will be finding timely, reliable, and usable data.

Source: Phys.Org

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