Alphabet’s Annual Meeting Draws Protests on Multitude of Issues
Google engineer Irene Knapp spoke in favor of a proposal to tie executive compensation to the company’s progress on diversity and inclusion. Knapp cited research by the group AI Now showing that bias in artificial intelligence technology is related to the lack of diversity in the industry.
Bloomberg
Jun 19, 2019
Exposing the Bias Embedded in Tech
The other panel member, Meredith Whittaker, a founder and a director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, noted that voice recognition tools that rely on A.I. often don’t recognize higher-pitched voices.
The New York Times
Jun 17, 2019
Google walkout organizer leaves company after claims of retaliation
Whittaker said she was told that, in order to stay at the company, she would have to “abandon” her work on AI ethics and her role at AI Now Institute, a research center she cofounded at New York University.
ABC News
Jun 7, 2019
Advertisers want to mine your brain
"The people who are able to apply and market these technologies are large brands and corporations," says Meredith Whittaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute. "This is not an equal-access set of technologies. They're used by some on others."
Axios
Jun 3, 2019
San Francisco banned facial recognition tech. Here’s why other cities should too.
Even if all the technical issues were to be fixed and facial recognition tech completely de-biased, would that stop the software from harming our society when it’s deployed in the real world? Not necessarily, as a new report from the AI Now Institute explains.
Vox
May 16, 2019
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?
Vox
May 13, 2019
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.
Forbes
May 8, 2019
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.
LA Times
May 1, 2019
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.
The Washington Post
Apr 27, 2019
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.
Forbes
Apr 26, 2019
Google ‘retaliating against harassment protest organisers’
Meredith Whittaker, who co-signed the email, said her role had also been “changed dramatically”.
BBC
Apr 23, 2019
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.”
Wired
Apr 23, 2019
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.
Vox
Apr 19, 2019
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.
IMDiversity
Apr 16, 2019
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.
Bloomberg
Apr 6, 2019
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.”
LA Times
Apr 5, 2019
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.
Vox
Apr 3, 2019
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.
Forbes
Mar 27, 2019
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