AI Expo Global: Fairness and safety in artificial intelligence

AI News sat down with Faculty's head of research Ilya Feige to discuss safe and fair practices in artificial intelligence development.

Feige had just finished giving a talk entitled ‘Fairness in AI: Latest developments in AI safety’ at this year's AI Expo Global. We managed to grab him to get more of his thoughts on the issue.

Rightfully, people are becoming increasingly concerned about unfair and unsafe AIs. Human biases are seeping into algorithms which poses a...

1 May 2019 | Ethics

EU AI Expert Group: Ethical risks are ‘unimaginable’

The EU Commission’s AI expert group has published its assessment of the rapidly-advancing technology and warned it has “unimaginable” ethical risks.

Some of the highlighted risks includes lethal autonomous systems, tracking individuals, and ‘scoring’ people in society.

On the subject of lethal autonomous systems, the experts warn machines with cognitive skills could “decide whom, when and where to fight without human intervention”.

When it comes...

11 April 2019 | Ethics

Google axes its AI ethics board after less than a week

Google has axed its troubled AI ethics board less than a week after it had been created.

The board appeared fairly representative of society from the outset, although perhaps too much so. Some views shouldn't be represented.

In a statement, Google wrote:

"It's become clear that in the current environment, ATEAC can't function as we wanted. So we're ending the council and going back to the drawing board.

We'll continue to be responsible in our work on the...

5 April 2019 | Ethics

Google’s AI ethics panel is already receiving backlash

Google is already facing criticism of its AI ethics panel over featuring a conservative figure with some controversial views.

Kay Editor is the president of conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. The foundation has a history of opposing LGBTQ and immigrant rights which many Googlers feel should not be promoted.

A group of Google employees which calls itself ‘Googlers Against Transphobia’ wrote a post criticising Mountain View’s appointment of the Heritage...

2 April 2019 | Ethics

Report: 94 percent of IT leaders want greater focus on AI ethics

A study from SnapLogic has found that 94 percent of IT decision makers across the UK and US want a greater focus on ethical AI development.

Bias in algorithms continues to be a problem and is among the biggest barriers to societal adoption. Facial recognition algorithms, for example, have been found to be far less accurate for some parts of society than others.

Without addressing these issues, we’re in danger of automating problems such as racial profiling. Public...

26 March 2019 | Ethics

Stanford’s institute ensuring AI ‘represents humanity’ lacks diversity

An institute established by Stanford University to address concerns that AI may not represent the whole of humanity is lacking in diversity.

The goal of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence is admirable, but the fact it consists primarily of white males brings into doubt its ability to ensure adequate representation.

Cybersecurity expert Chad Loder noticed that not a single member of Stanford’s new AI faculty was black. Tech site Gizmodo reached out...

22 March 2019 | Ethics

UK government investigates AI bias in decision-making

The UK government is launching an investigation to determine the levels of bias in algorithms that could affect people's lives.

A browse through our ‘ethics’ category here on AI News will highlight the serious problem of bias in today's algorithms. With AIs being increasingly used for decision-making, parts of society could be left behind.

Conducted by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), the investigation will focus on areas where AI has tremendous...

20 March 2019 | Ethics

#MWC19: AI requires innovation, values, and trust

During an MWC keynote, a range of experts and policymakers explained the keywords they believe are behind ensuring responsible AI deployments.

The keynote featured IBM’s SVP of Global Business Services, Mark Foster; the EU’s Digital Economy and Society Commissioner, Mariya Gabriel; and the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Angel Gurria.

Foster opened the session with a foreboding tone: “What we want to talk about is...

25 February 2019 | Ethics

Microsoft warns its AI offerings ‘may result in reputational harm’

Microsoft has warned investors that its AI offerings could damage the company’s reputation in a bid to prepare them for the worst.

AI can be unpredictable, and Microsoft already has experience. Back in 2016, a Microsoft chatbot named Tay became a racist, sexist, generally-rather-unsavoury character after internet users took advantage of its machine learning capabilities

The chatbot was covered in media around the world and itself was bound to have caused Microsoft some...

6 February 2019 | Ethics

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