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Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter says AI should never have the “true autonomy” to kill

What do you do with a group of people — again, going back to regulation — who have never been regulated to start to put guardrails in place? How do you get them to stick to those or think of them as a good thing?

Cameras Everywhere: The Ethics Of Eyes In The Sky

In December AI Now reported on a subclass of facial recognition that supposedly measures your affect with claims that it can detect your true personality, your inner feelings and even your mental health based on images or video of your face. AI Now warned against using these tools for hiring or access to insurance or policing.

Google workers protest ‘culture of retaliation’ with sit-in

Whittaker wrote that she was informed that her role at the company would be “changed dramatically,” and that she would have to abandon her outside work on artificial intelligence ethics at AI Now Institute, an organization she co-founded.

Two women led a protest at Google. Is Google retaliating against them now?

The news that Ms. Whittaker’s role would be overhauled came right after Google disbanded its external ethics review board, and at her NYU institute and elsewhere, she has agitated for safeguards around nascent technologies such as facial recognition.

Why Tech Billionaires Are Spending To Restrain Artificial Intelligence

A report from New York University’s AI Now Institute found that a predominantly white male coding workforce is causing bias in algorithms.

Google ‘retaliating against harassment protest organisers’

Meredith Whittaker, who co-signed the email, said her role had also been “changed dramatically”.

Google Walkout Organizers Say They Faced Retaliation

Walkout Organizers Say They Faced Retaliation The other email author, Whittaker describes how she was told she would be forced “to abandon my work on AI ethics and the AI Now Institute which I cofounded.” The two women express that they found a common theme among the stories they collected from the walkout, “People who stand up and report discrimination, abuse, and unethical conduct are punished, sidelined, and pushed out.”

Some AI just shouldn’t exist

One of the authors on the AI Now report, Sarah Myers West, said in a press call that such “algorithmic gaydar” systems should not be built, both because they’re based on pseudoscience and because they put LGBTQ people at risk. “The researchers say, ‘We’re just doing this because we want to show how scary these systems can be,’ but then they explain in explicit detail how you would create such a system,” she said.

Gender, Race, and Power in AI: A Playlist

The problem with AI? Study says it’s too white and male, calls for more women, minorities

Artificial intelligence technologies are developed mostly in major tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, and in a small number of university labs, which all tilt white, affluent and male and, in many cases, are only getting more so. Only by adding more women, people of color and other underrepresented groups can artificial intelligence address the bias and create more equitable systems, says Meredith Whittaker, a report author and co-founder of the AI Now Institute.

The Google AI Ethics Board With Actual Power Is Still Around

“Ethical codes may deflect criticism by acknowledging that problems exist, without ceding any power to regulate or transform the way technology is developed and applied,” wrote the AI Now Institute, a research group at New York University, in a 2018 report.

LAPD to scrap some crime data programs after criticism

Rashida Richardson, director of policy research at the AI Now Institute and a co-author of the report, said Smith’s findings mirrored suspicions that police target specific communities. “This shows a larger policing problem,” she said. “None of this is standardized. A lot of this system is one-sided.”

Google’s brand-new AI ethics board is already falling apart

“The frameworks presently governing AI are not capable of ensuring accountability,” a review of AI ethical governance by the AI Now Institute concluded in November.

The Growing Marketplace For AI Ethics

Companies at all stages on the AI development spectrum want to know where public policy on intelligent systems is headed. The work being produced by New York–based research institute AI Now offers a road map.

AI Regulation: It’s Time For Training Wheels

Most companies already designing and using artificial intelligence (AI) today recognize the need for guiding principles and a model for governance. Some are actively developing their own ethical AI policies, while others are collaborating with nonprofit organizations—such as the AI Now Institute or the Partnership on AI—grappling with the same issues.

Data Quality: The Risks Of Dirty Data And AI

The AI Now Institute recently published an assertive list of some of the lowlights in AI ethics over the past year, along with a report highlighting the growing ethical risks in surveillance.

4 Industries That Feel The Urgency Of AI Ethics

According to Meredith Whittaker, co-founder and co-director of the AI Now Institute at NYU, this is only the tip of the ethical iceberg. Accountability and liability are open and pressing issues that society must address as autonomous vehicles take over roadways.

Our Software Is Biased Like We Are. Can New Laws Change That?

An increasingly common algorithm predicts whether parents will harm their children, basing the decision on whatever data is at hand. If a parent is low income and has used government mental-health services, that parent’s risk score goes up. But for another parent who can afford private health insurance, the data is simply unavailable. This creates an inherent (if unintended) bias against low-income parents, says Rashida Richardson, director of policy research at the nonprofit AI Now Institute, which provides feedback and relevant research to governments working on algorithmic transparency.