Announcements

Algorithmic Accountability for the Public Sector: learning from the first wave of policy implementation

The AI Now Institute, Ada Lovelace Institute, and the Open Government Partnership (OGP) are partnering to launch the first global study evaluating this initial wave of algorithmic accountability policy.

FAQs — A New AI Lexicon

Call for Contributors ‘A New AI Lexicon: Responses and Challenges to the Critical AI discourse’

Montreal AI Ethics Insitute’s The State of AI Ethics Panel (Dec 2020)

National Science Policy Symposium 2020 Panel: Systemic Barriers in Equity and Access to Technology

Sarah Myers West spoke together with Nicol Turner-Lee, and Tyrone Grandison. Technology is an integral part of our everyday lives through broad-band internet usage, protection of cyber-security security, or the usage of artifical intelligence (AI) to mimic human-operations. Historically, technology has perpetuated racial discrimination with biases in algorthims used in the health-care system, facial recognition in the criminal justice system, to Black and Latinx students lacking access to technological resources. This panel will discuss the historical context of racism in technology, current technology access issues in communities of color, as well as strategies and policies that dismantle systemic racism in technology.

Visual Activism: Erin McElroy | UC Berkeley Arts Research Center

Discriminating Systems: Gender, Race and Power in Artificial Intelligence at the Indiana University Informatics Colloquium

Sarah Myers West gave a colloquium talk about discrimination in artificial intelligence for Indiana University's Informatics Colloquium. The artificial intelligence industry is in the midst of a crisis in diversity and inclusion: while the representation of women in computer science recently fell below levels in the 1960s, inclusion across lines of race, gender, and ability in AI appear to be even worse. This is reflected in biased artificial intelligence systems: voice recognition that can’t ‘hear’ women’s voices, facial identification systems that struggle to identify darker skin pigmentation and trans people, and autonomous vehicles that present safety risks to children and disabled people. This keynote will survey the landscape of gender, race and power in the field of artificial intelligence, and its implications for algorithmic injustice.

Informal Livelihoods and the Gig Economy | Amit Basole and Noopur Raval | Rethinking Economics India

Ambivalence in the (Private) Public Sphere: How Global Digital Activists Navigate Risk

Sarah Myers West presented on a qualitative research project examining how digital activists navigate risks posed to them in online environments.

NYC School of Data 2020

BetaNYC hosts NYC School of Data 2020 at CUNY School of Law in Queens. This event, held on International Open Data Day 2020, concludes the fourth annual NYC Open Data Week. NYC School of data is a community driven conference with a focus on open data, civic technology, and service design. Three of the many tracks will be webcast live via a partnership with the Internet Society New York Chapter.

Joy Lisi Rankin at the United Nations Women’s “Counted and Visible” Conference

Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin, Research Lead at AI Now Institute, recently spoke about bias, algorithmic technologies and surveillance at the UN's "Counted and Visible" Conference.

2019 Symposium

AI Now Thursdays: Ryan Moritz: Important Bird Opera

Important Bird Opera (music, photographs, and film by Ryan Moritz with a libretto by Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb) is an experimental opera in three acts about birds, migration, climate crisis, and rewilding. The piece began as a research project and experiment in nature photography, sound documentary, and the twentieth-century tone poem. Built on an archive of music, migration photographs, video footage, and recorded birdsong from across the hemisphere, Important Bird Opera evolved into a more argumentative and political piece, one that follows climate writer Alan Weisman’s prompt to imagine—perhaps even dream—of a world without us. The title of the piece, a nod to international non-profit alliance BirdLife International’s designation of “Important Bird Areas,” also registers the artist’s ongoing activist and volunteer work with specific bird conservation efforts. The libretto, “Unflocked Heart,” set in the opera alongside images and footage of birds in stunning motion and sometimes humorous repose, tells the story of a diverse avian community riven by doubt and hesitation and brought together unexpectedly in hope. Important Bird Opera explores avian population decline; climatological and built-environment challenges to traditional migratory patterns; and the possibility of reforestation and ecological remedy undertaken by non-human consciousnesses.

We’re hiring a Critical Designer

The Critical Designer will scope, iterate, and develop meaningful visualizations based on AI Now’s Data Genesis research.

Imagining a post GDPR order: Panel at CPDP 2020

Amba Kak presented on a panel on the future of data protection law and algorithmic accountability at CPDP 2020

We’re Hiring Graduate Research Assistants

AI Now is seeking Graduate Research Assistants to support the ongoing research at the Institute. These part-time positions are ideal for graduate students looking to gain exposure to the developing interdisciplinary field surrounding the social and political implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

We’re Hiring Graduate Research Assistants

Positions available for spring and summer 2020 and AY 2020-21

Announcing AI Now’s Data Genesis Program:Studying and demystifying training data

We are thrilled to announce the official launch of the Data Genesis research program at the AI Now Institute at NYU.