Researchers get public to decide who to save in a driverless car crash

Researchers have conducted an experiment intending to solve the ethical conundrum of who to save if a fatal driverless car crash is unavoidable. A driverless car AI will need to be programmed with decisions such as who to prioritise if it came down to choices such as between swerving and hitting a child on the left, or an elderly person on the right. It may seem a fairly simple choice for some – children have their whole life in front of them, the elderly have fewer years ahead. However,...

25 October 2018 | Ethics

Baidu is the first Chinese firm to join US-led AI supergroup

Chinese search giant Baidu has become the first company from China to join a US-led AI supergroup focused on advancing industry ethics. The group is called PAI (Partnership on AI) and has been formed amid fears about the potential impacts of artificial intelligence. Such concerns include the potential effect on jobs, discrimination, and the potential loss of life when AI us used in a military capacity. PAI consists of more than 70 academic institutes along with civil groups and technology...

17 October 2018 | China

Business leaders ensuring responsible use of AI within organisations, research finds

A recently conducted joint study by SAS, Accenture Applied Intelligence, Intel, and Forbes Insights has argued that business leaders are taking all kinds of measures into consideration to ensure responsible use of AI within their organisations. The report, titled “AI Momentum, Maturity and Models for Success”, notes that most AI adopters account for 72% of global organisations who conduct training for their technologists and have ethics committees in place to review the use of AI. Such...

24 September 2018 | Ethics

IBM releases tool for tackling scourge of bias in AI algorithms

Bias and prejudice remains a serious issue across many societies, take away human input and the result could be disastrous. IBM is stepping in with a tool it calls ‘Fairness 360’ which scans for signs of bias in algorithms to recommend adjustments on how to correct them. AIs already have a documented bias problem. It’s rarely intentional, but typically a result of their developers coming from the predominant part of each society. Take facial recognition software, for example. A 2010...

19 September 2018 | Ethics

Majority of consumers fear companies will take AI too far, research warns

If the industry thinks it will be an easy job to convince users that AI will be a force for good rather than evil, new figures from agency Elicit Insights may suggest otherwise. According to the company’s report, ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Very Real, Real-World Anxiety It Causes’, which polled almost 700 consumers, three in five (59%) said AI ‘has the ability to be good, but has some inherent risks associated with it’. 15% said it would be a benevolent force for good, while 18%...

24 August 2018 | Ethics

Amazon expert suggests AI regulation after ACLU’s bias findings

An expert from Amazon has suggested the government should implement a minimum confidence level for the use of facial recognition in law enforcement. Dr. Matt Wood, GM of Deep Learning and AI at Amazon Web Services, made the suggestion in a blog post responding to the ACLU’s (American Civil Liberties Union) findings of a racial bias in the ‘Rekognition’ facial recognition algorithm by Amazon. In their findings, the ACLU found Rekognition erroneously labelled those with darker skin...

30 July 2018 | Amazon

ACLU finds Amazon’s facial recognition AI is racially biased

A test of Amazon’s facial recognition technology by the ACLU has found it erroneously labelled those with darker skin colours as criminals more often. Bias in AI technology, when used by law enforcement, has raised concerns of infringing on civil rights by automated racial profiling. A 2010 study by researchers at NIST and the University of Texas in Dallas found that algorithms designed and tested in East Asia are better at recognising East Asians, while those designed in Western...

27 July 2018 | Amazon

Scientists pledge not to build AIs which kill without oversight

Thousands of scientists have signed a pledge not to have any role in building AIs which have the ability to kill without human oversight. When many think of AI, they at least give some passing thought of rogue AIs seen in sci-fi movies such as the infamous Skynet in Terminator. In an ideal world, AI would never be used in any military capacity. However, it was almost certainly be developed one way or another because of the advantage it would provide to an adversary without similar...

18 July 2018 | Ethics

China is set to climb the AI rankings over the next decade

China currently sits in seventh place when it comes to professionals working in AI, but the nation is expected to climb the rankings over the next decade. According to a report by LinkedIn, there are currently more than 50,000 AI professionals working in China. The leader, the United States, has 850,000 professionals working in the industry. Wang Di, VP of LinkedIn China, said:

"The core technique of AI is closely related to computer science, in which the US has...

16 July 2018 | China

Consumers want businesses to have more human-like AI

Research has found most consumers have interacted with AI and would prioritise businesses with human-like implementations. The research, from Capgemini’s Digital Transformation Institute, found close to three-quarters (73 percent) of consumers have interacted via AI. Satisfaction with those who have experienced AI interactions is slightly lower, at 69 percent. Over two-thirds satisfaction is quite surprisingly high, especially when you consider how dissatisfied people typically are with...

9 July 2018 | Ethics