Business continues to move online and in any conversation you’ll come across the words “data privacy”, “cyber-crime”, “online retailer”, “App development” and many more.

So what exactly does a technology attorney do?

Basically – anything to do with the law and technology. Here at SwiftTechLaw we specialise in the following areas:

GRC (GOVERNANCE, RISK AND COMPLIANCE) – which includes PRIVACY LAW COMPLIANCE (POPIA & GDPR). Information privacy is a hot topic at the moment as the Information Regulator creeps closer to being established. Once this happens South African organisations will need to comply or face hefty penalties. We assist our clients with their compliance, which includes providing them with all required documentation, training and website updates.

DOMAIN NAME RIGHTS AND DISPUTES – Having a company website / online store in this day and age is becoming vital to the success of any organisation and securing your domain name is the first step. We assist with any matters relating to domain name registrations and disputes.

APP DEVELOPMENT – Have an idea for a new app? SwiftTechLaw can assist.

CRYPTOCURRENCY TRANSACTIONS – Crypto-currency investment remains the wild west of South Africa’s financial landscape. There is no cohesive regulation which restricts transactions or facilitates trade and this exposes investors to many risks. Organisations providing platforms for cryptocurrency transactions should also keep up to date with the latest regulations in order to minimise the risk for themselves and their investors. We assist by providing legal opinions and advise on how to minimise the risk of cryptocurrency transactions while the regulation thereof remains mostly unclear.

SOCIAL MEDIA RIGHTS PROTECTION / SEXTORTION / CYBERBULLYING / REVENGE PORN

START-UP / INCUBATOR ASSISTANCE – We assist start-ups with Non-disclosure Agreements, Non-compete Agreements, Registering different types of intellectual property (I.P), Contractual Terms of Business for each specific start-up, Website Privacy Policies and T&C’s, POPIA and GDPR Training.

TRADEMARK REGISTRATION – Trademark registration is a crucial first step for your start-up in order to ensure that you are able to continuously build your brand. If you decide that you don’t want to register your trademark, or that will get around to it once your company has become more established, it’s important that you understand the possible implications of not investing in the protecting of your intellectual property. Let us assist you in building your brand by with our trademark registration services.

COMMERCIAL TECHNOLOGY LAW – need to register a new company? Need assistance in the drafting of End User Licence Agreements? Software Agreements? Or Tech Deal Structuring? SwiftTechLaw provides a wide variety of legal services relating to commercial technology law.

TECHNOLOGY AND CIVIL LITIGATION – need to send a letter of demand? Don’t know what your options are in terms of legal recourse? We assist clients in settling or proceeding further with their legal disputes.

We also specialise in ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, CYBER CRIMES AND HACKING, ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES, GAMBLING AND GAMING TRANSACTIONS, CONSUMER RIGHTS AND DISPUTES.

Contact SwiftTechLaw here to assist you with your legal needs.

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WHAT EXACTLY IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

Artificial Intelligence is an area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. Some of the activities computers with Artificial Intelligence are designed for include speech recognition, learning, planning and problem solving. The effects thereof can be good and bad.

THE GOOD

Most people view Artificial Intelligence as futuristic and are unaware of how their lives are already affected by Artificial Intelligence. While FNB’s chatbot might be a new experience for many South Africans, the personal assistant chatbots, Siri or Alexa have already become the new normal for thousands of people around the globe. What many people don’t know is that as you use these assistants, they continuously learn about you until they are able to accurately anticipate your needs. The South African tech startup, Hey Jude, capitalised on this concept by creating a virtual personal assistant similar to Siri or Alexa, but improving the service and scope of requests by having real people “behind the scenes” attend to the requests. You can literally ask Jude to assist you with anything, ranging from restaurant bookings, renewing your car license or even prank-calling your boyfriend – all in good spirits of course. Hey Jude is a noteworthy example of the benefits of Artificial Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence (human) integration. As the tech mogul, Elon Musk warns: “humans must merge with machines or become irrelevant”.

Another exciting use of Artificial Intelligence comes from music applications such as Spotify or Apple Music. These apps use data to drive decisions. With Spotify every user gets a weekly personalised music playlist that they have never listened to on the service before, but that the algorithm calculated will be something the listener is expected to enjoy – eliminating the need for you to actively search for new music recommendations.

THE BAD

But what about the more recent report that Amazon had to scrap its secret recruiting tool as they were unable to rectify the algorithm that taught itself to prefer men over women or the malfunctioning of self-driving cars like those produced by Tesla, causing accidents and killing its drivers or innocent pedestrians. And probably the scariest of all – when Google employees quit over the company’s involvement in a drone program for the Pentagon called Project Maven. The project assisted the US military in developing drones that can spot and target vehicles and people by using Artificial Intelligence. Whereas current military drones are still controlled by people, this new technology will decide who to kill with almost no human involvement. And these are only a few cases that have come to light.

As per the examples above, today’s early stage Artificial Intelligence raises several practical and ethical problems. Artificial Intelligence systems are largely based on opaque algorithms that make decisions that even their own designers might  not be able to explain. The underlying mathematical models can be biased, and computational errors may occur. For the average person the main concerns surrounding Artificial Intelligence today should be that AI may progressively increase unemployment by displacing human skills.

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT AI

There have been some grave predictions about the potential of Artificial Intelligence from some high-profile tech experts. In 2014, the late Stephen Hawking wrote that the “Success in creating Artificial Intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.” Musk has furthermore issued numerous warnings and have gone as far as to state that the global race for Artificial Intelligence will cause World War III and that “AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation”.

Contrarily, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates publicly disagrees with Musk and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls Musk’s warnings “pretty irresponsible”. Zuckerberg continues to display optimistic views about a future where AI positively influences human life.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

No doubt we are in the age of witnessing Artificial Intelligence and digital revolution transforming the way we live quite radically, bringing with great opportunities for creating more efficient systems and achieving more growth. However, Musk continues to issue warnings regarding Artificial Intelligence and it begs the question if he knows something that the other tech moguls do not. In of his latest warnings he stated that “I am really quite close, I am very close, to the cutting edge in Artificial Intelligence and it scares the hell out of me. It’s capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows and the rate of improvement is exponential.”

SwiftTechLaw is at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence and its application to contemporary legal issues. Contact us here for more information.

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