Connect with us

Artificial Intelligence

Workforce Training Needed to Address Artificial Intelligence Bias, Researchers Suggest

Building on the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Published

on

Russell Wald. Credit: Rod Searcey, Stanford Law School

WASHINGTON, October 24, 2022–To align with the newly released White House guide on artificial intelligence, Stanford University’s director of policy said at an October Brookings Institution event last week that there needs to be more social and technical workforce training to address artificial intelligence biases.

Released on October 4, the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights framework by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy is a guide for companies to follow five principles to ensure the protection of consumer rights from automated harm.

AI algorithms rely on learning the users behavior and disclosed information to customize services and advertising. Due to the nature of this process, algorithms carry the potential to send targeted information or enforce discriminatory eligibility practices based on race or class status, according to critics.

Risk mitigation, which prevents algorithm-based discrimination in AI technology is listed as an ‘expectation of an automated system’ under the “safe and effective systems” section of the White House framework.

Experts at the Brookings virtual event believe that workforce development is the starting point for professionals to learn how to identify risk and obtain the capacity to fulfill this need.

“We don’t have the talent available to do this type of investigative work,” Russell Wald, policy director for Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, said at the event.

“We just don’t have a trained workforce ready and so what we really need to do is. I think we should invest in the next generation now and start giving people tools and access and the ability to learn how to do this type of work.”

Nicol Turner-Lee, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed with Wald, recommending sociologists, philosophers and technologists get involved in the process of AI programming to align with algorithmic discrimination protections – another core principle of the framework.

Core principles and protections suggested in this framework would require lawmakers to create new policies or include them in current safety requirements or civil rights laws. Each principle includes three sections on principles, automated systems and practice by government entities.

In July, Adam Thierer, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University stated that he is “a little skeptical that we should create a regulatory AI structure,” and instead proposed educating workers on how to set best practices for risk management, calling it an “educational institution approach.”

Artificial Intelligence

Sen. Bennet Urges Companies to Consider ‘Alarming’ Child Safety Risks in AI Chatbot Race

Several leading tech companies have rushed to integrate their own AI-powered applications

Published

on

Photo of Sen. Michael Bennet in 2019 by Gage Skidmore, used with permission

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2023 — Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., on Tuesday urged the companies behind generative artificial intelligence products to anticipate and mitigate the potential harms that AI-powered chatbots pose to underage users.

“The race to deploy generative AI cannot come at the expense of our children,” Bennet wrote in a letter to the heads of Google, OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and Snap. “Responsible deployment requires clear policies and frameworks to promote safety, anticipate risk and mitigate harm.”

In response to the explosive popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, several leading tech companies have rushed to integrate their own AI-powered applications. Microsoft recently released an AI-powered version of its Bing search engine, and Google has announced plans to make a conversational AI service “widely available to the public in the coming weeks.”

Social media platforms have followed suit, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying the company plans to “turbocharge” its AI development the same day Snapchat launched a GPT-powered chatbot called My AI.

These chatbots have already demonstrated “alarming” interactions, Bennet wrote. In response to a researcher posing as a child, My AI gave instructions for lying to parents about an upcoming trip with a 31-year-old man and for covering up a bruise ahead of a visit from Child Protective Services.

A Snap Newsroom post announcing the chatbot acknowledged that “as with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything.”

Bennet criticized the company for deploying My AI despite knowledge of its shortcomings, noting that 59 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 use Snapchat. “Younger users are at an earlier stage of cognitive, emotional, and intellectual development, making them more impressionable, impulsive, and less equipped to distinguish fact from fiction,” he wrote.

These concerns are compounded by an escalating youth mental health crisis, Bennet added. In 2021, more than half of teen girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless and one in three seriously contemplated suicide, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Against this backdrop, it is not difficult to see the risk of exposing young people to chatbots that have at times engaged in verbal abuse, encouraged deception and suggested self-harm,” the senator wrote.

Bennet’s letter comes as lawmakers from both parties are expressing growing concerns about technology’s impact on young users. Legislation aimed at safeguarding children’s online privacy has gained broad bipartisan support, and several other measures — ranging from a minimum age requirement for social media usage to a slew of regulations for tech companies — have been proposed.

Many industry experts have also called for increased AI regulation, noting that very little legislation currently governs the powerful technology.

Continue Reading

Artificial Intelligence

Oversight Committee Members Concerned About New AI, As Witnesses Propose Some Solutions

Federal government can examine algorithms for generative AI, and coordinate with states on AI labor training.

Published

on

By

Photo of Eric Schmidt from December 2011 by Kmeron used with permission

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2023 –  In response to lawmakers’ concerns over the impacts on certain artificial intelligence technologies, experts said at an oversight subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that more government regulation would be necessary to stem their negative impacts.

Relatively new machine learning technology known as generative AI, which is designed to create content on its own, has taken the world by storm. Specific applications such as the recently surfaced ChatGPT, which can write out entire novels from basic user inputs, has drawn both marvel and concern.

Such AI technology can be used to encourage cheating behaviors in academia as well as harm people through the use of  deep fakes, which uses AI to superimpose a user in a video. Such AI can be used to produce “revenge pornography” to harass, silence and blackmail victims.

Aleksander Mądry, professor of Cadence Design Systems of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the subcommittee that AI is a very fast moving technology, meaning the government needs to step in to confirm the objectives of the companies and whether the algorithms match the societal benefits and values. These generative AI technologies are often limited to their human programming and can also display biases.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, raised concerns about this type of AI replacing human jobs. Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and now chair of the AI development initiative known as the Special Competitive Studies Project, said that if this AI can be well-directed, it can aid people in obtaining higher incomes and actually creating more jobs.

To that point, Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Massachusetts., raised the question of how much progress the government has made or still needs in AI development.

Schmidt said governments across the country need to look at bolstering the labor force to keep up.

“I just don’t see the progress in government to reform the way of hiring and promoting technical people,” he said. “This technology is too new. You need new students, new ideas, new invention – I think that’s the fastest way.

“On the federal level, the easiest thing to do is to come up with some program that’s ministered by the state or by leading universities and getting them money so that they can build these programs.”

Schmidt urged lawmakers last year to create a digital service academy to train more young American students on AI, cybersecurity and cryptocurrency, reported Axios.

Continue Reading

Artificial Intelligence

Congress Should Focus on Tech Regulation, Said Former Tech Industry Lobbyist

Congress should shift focus from speech debates to regulation on emerging technologies, says expert.

Published

on

Photo of Adam Conner, vice president of technology policy at American Progress

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2023 – Congress should focus on technology regulation, particularly for emerging technology, rather than speech debates, said Adam Conner, vice president of technology policy at American Progress at Broadband Breakfast’s Big Tech and Speech Summit Thursday.

Conner challenged the view of many in industry who assume that any change to current laws, including section 230, would only make the internet worse.  

Conner, who aims to build a progressive technology policy platform and agenda, spent the past 15 years working as a Washington employee for several Silicon Valley companies, including Slack Technologies and Brigade. In 2007, Conner founded Facebook’s Washington office.

Instead, Conner argues that this mindset traps industry leaders in the assumption that the internet is currently the best it could ever be. This is a fallacy, he claims. To avoid this mindset, Conner suggests that the industry focus on regulation for new and emerging technology like artificial intelligence. 

Recent AI innovations, like ChatGPT, create the most human readable AI experience ever made through text, images, and videos, Conner said. The penetration of AI will completely change the discussion about protecting free speech, he said, urging Congress to draft laws now to ensure its safe use in the United States. 

Congress should start its AI regulation with privacy, anti-trust, and child safety laws, he said. Doing so will prove to American citizens that the internet can, in fact, be better than it is now and will promote future policy amendments, he said.

To watch the full videos join the Broadband Breakfast Club below. We are currently offering a Free 30-Day Trial: No credit card required!

Continue Reading

Signup for Broadband Breakfast News



Broadband Breakfast Research Partner

Trending