Joy Buolamwini: Fighting algorithmic bias needs to be ‘a priority’

Algorithmic Justice League founder Joy Buolamwini gave a speech during the World Economic Forum this week on the need to fight AI bias.

Buolamwini is also an MIT Media Lab researcher and went somewhat viral for her TED Talk in 2016 titled ‘How I’m fighting bias in algorithms’.

Her latest speech included a presentation in which Buolamwini went over an analysis of the current popular facial recognition algorithms.

Here were the overall accuracy results when...

24 January 2019 | Ethics

DeepMind’s AI will show off its new StarCraft 2 skills this week

DeepMind has been continuing to train its AI in the ways of StarCraft 2 and will show off its most recent progress this week.

StarCraft 2 is a complex game with many strategies, making it the perfect testing ground for AI. Google’s DeepMind first started exploring how it can use AI to beat the world’s best StarCraft players back in 2016.

In 2017, StarCraft’s developer Blizzard made 65,000 past matches available to DeepMind researchers to begin training bots....

23 January 2019 | Gaming

AI is sentencing people based on their ‘risk’ assessment

AI-powered tools for determining the risk of an individual are being used to make incarceration and sentencing decisions.

During the Data for Black Lives conference last weekend, several experts shared how AI is evolving America’s controversial prison system.

America imprisons more people than any other nation. It’s not just a result of the population of the country, the incarceration per head is the highest in the world at ~716 per 100,000 of the national...

22 January 2019 | Law Enforcement

Facebook pumps $7.5m into an independent AI ethics centre

An independent AI ethics research centre is set to receive $7.5 million of funding courtesy of the folks at Facebook.

The new research centre is called the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and was created in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Facebook, like many companies, is fighting outside concerns about the development of AI and its potential societal impact. The centre should help to ensure Facebook keeps up with ethical best...

21 January 2019 | Ethics

Amazon doubles-down on AI with public re:MARS conference

Amazon has announced it will be holding an AI conference later this year called ‘re:MARS’ which is open for the public to attend.

The AI-focused conference will feature speakers, workshops, demonstrations, and roundtables.

Amazon has been holding a similar conference simply called MARS (Machine learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space) for the past three years. That event, however, was invite-only.

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon,...

18 January 2019 | Amazon

Speech and facial recognition combine to boost AI emotion detection

Researchers have combined speech and facial recognition data to improve the emotion detection abilities of AIs.

The ability to recognise emotions is a longstanding goal of AI researchers. Accurate recognition enables things such as detecting tiredness at the wheel, anger which could lead to a crime being committed, or perhaps even signs of sadness/depression at suicide hotspots.

Nuances in how people speak and move their facial muscles to express moods have presented a...

17 January 2019 | Face Recognition

How AI technologies are helping in the fight against cancer

From the invention of smartphones to digital assistants like Siri or Alexa breakthrough technology has been an extremely hot topic in recent years. Many aspects of life revolve around technology, but some of the most incredible innovations, however, are unseen by the majority of us in our daily lives.

Generally speaking, it was much more grim to receive a cancer diagnosis roughly 50 years ago than it is today. The 5-year survival rate for childhood leukemia was just 14 percent...

17 January 2019 | Healthcare

Trump speech ‘DeepFake’ shows a present AI threat

A so-called ‘DeepFake’ video of a Trump speech was broadcast on a Fox-owned Seattle TV network, showing a very present AI threat.

The station, Q13, broadcasted a doctored Trump speech in which he somehow appeared even more orange and pulled amusing faces.

You can see a side-by-side comparison with the original below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZLs11uSg-A&feature=youtu.be

Following the broadcast, a Q13 employee was sacked. It’s unclear if...

14 January 2019 | Deep Learning

Most-funded AI startup SenseTime wants another $2bn

Not content with being the world’s most-funded AI startup, Chinese facial recognition darling SenseTime is preparing a $2 billion financing round.

SenseTime raised more than $1.2 billion last year; including a round announced in May that valued it at more than $4.5 billion.

According to Bloomberg sources, the company is aiming for $2 billion more funding but the information is private. The sources claim investor Alibaba is working on the...

11 January 2019 | China

Report: The public is unconvinced AI will benefit humanity

Decades of sci-fi flicks have instilled a fear of AI in some people – with a new report suggesting many remain unconvinced it will benefit humanity.

The report, from the Center for the Governance of AI based at Oxford University, reveals concerns artificial intelligence may harm or endanger humankind. 2,000 US adults were surveyed in 2018 for their views.

Baobao Zhang and Allan Dafoe, authors of the report, wrote in its summary:

“Public sentiments have...

10 January 2019 | Ethics