AI Weekly: The growing importance of clear AI ethics policies
In a letter addressed to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, 19 groups of shareholders expressed concerns that Rekognition’s facial recognition capabilities will be misused in ways that “violate [the] civil and human rights” of “people of color, immigrants, and civil society organizations.” And they said that it set the stage for sales of the software to foreign governments and authoritarian regimes.
Amazon, for its part, said in a statement that it will “suspend … customer’s right to use … services [like Rekognition]” if it determines those services are being “abused.” It has so far declined, however, to define the bright-line rules that would trigger a suspension.
AI ethics is a nascent field. Consortia and think tanks like the Partnership on AI, Oxford University’s AI Code of Ethics project, Harvard University’s AI Initiative, and AI4All have worked to establish preliminary best practices and guidelines. But Francesca Rossi, IBM’s global leader for AI ethics, believes there’s more to be done.
“Each company should come up with its own principles,” she told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “They should spell out their principles according to the space that they’re in.”
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/22/ai-weekly-the-growing-importance-of-clear-ai-ethics-policies/