Google announces AI ethics panel


Google announces AI ethics panel

Dave Lee 26 March 2019

Google has launched a global advisory council to offer guidance on ethical issues relating to artificial intelligence, automation and related technologies.

The panel consists of eight people and includes former US deputy secretary of state, and a University of Bath associate professor.

The group will "consider some of Google's most complex challenges”, the firm said.

The panel was announced at MIT Technology Review's EmTech Digital, a conference organised the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Google has come under intense criticism - internally and externally - over how it plans to use emerging technologies.

In June 2018 the company said it would not renew a contract it had with the Pentagon to develop AI technology to control drones. Project Maven, as it was known, was unpopular among Google’s staff, and prompted some resignations.

In response, Google published a set of AI “principles” it said it would abide by. They included pledges to be "socially beneficial' and "accountable to people".

The Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) will meet for the first time in April. In a blog post, Google’s head of global affairs, Kent Walker, said there would be three further meetings in 2019.

Google has published a full list of the panel’s members. It includes leading mathematician Bubacarr Bah, former US deputy secretary of state William Joseph Burns, and Joanna Bryson, who teaches computer sciences at the University of Bath, UK.

It will discuss recommendations about how to use technologies such as facial recognition. Last year, Google’s then-head of cloud computing, Diane Greene, described facial recognition tech as having "inherent bias” due to a lack of diverse data.

In a highly-cited thesis entitled Robots Should Be Slaves, Ms Bryson argued against the trend of treating robots like people.

"In humanising them," she wrote, "we not only further dehumanise real people, but also encourage poor human decision making in the allocation of resources and responsibility."

In 2018 she argued that complexity should not be used as an excuse to not properly inform the public of how AI systems operate.

"When a system using AI causes damage, we need to know we can hold the human beings behind that system to account."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47714921

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke...
Read more

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that th...
Read more

New ATM's: withdraw money with veins in your finger

New cash machines: withdraw money with veins in your finger Cash machine technology that reads the pattern of finger veins is already available in Japan and Poland   By Telegraph Reporters 6:59PM BST 15 May 2014 Cash machines could soon be installed with devices that identify customers by reading the veins in their fingers. The technology is already being rolled out in Poland, where 1,730 cash machines will this year be installed with readers, negating the need for a debit card and Pin. Developed by Hitachi, the Japanese electronics firm, the machines read the patterns of the veins just below the surface of the skin on your finger using infra-red sensors. The light is partially absorbed by haemoglobin in the veins to capture a unique finger vein pattern profile, which is matched to a profile. The technology is used by Japanese banks and also in Turkey, offering “groundbreaking levels of accuracy and speed of authentication”, Hitachi said, which in t...
Read more