These experts discuss the problems, challenges and benefits of auditing AI and creating ethical principles to guide tech development and create fairer outcomes, as well as the issues of lack of competency in many smaller businesses when it comes to spotting risk.

In Conversation with..

Many businesses want to work ethically but don’t know how to translate principles into practice.

Merve: A lot of companies are committing themselves to ethical policies, and a lot of these have come from scandals in the media — so some are thinking ahead. GDPR has definitely impacted this conversation, but we are at the very beginning of these conversations of mainstream practice and application inside organisations.

Shea: A lot of organisations don’t…

Who should decide how our data is used? Can the same regulation be enforced globally? How do we get Big Tech to look after their consumers?

Our experts at the Bucket List Summit discussed these questions and more, and this article shares with you the main ideas from this discussion.

We were joined by:

Ivana Bartoletti, Author of An Artificial Revolution: on Privacy, Politics and AI and Visiting Policy Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute.

Tom Foale, Founder and CTO of Klaatu IT Security.

Junaid Qadir PhD, Professor at Information Technology University, Lahore; Human-Centered AI Researcher.

Zsuzsanna Felkai Janssen, Head of Sector…

AI bias, thankfully, is becoming an increasingly hotter discussion topic in the technology industry — amongst academics and ethicists, and now with public awareness. Digital Bucket Company, with the vision to leave behind a legacy with a fairer, more sustainable world, organised a global AI Summit to bring together global experts to discuss the current state of AI and how we will move forward to tackle the big issues.

The Summit was live streamed on YouTube, where you can watch here, and started with a focus on algorithmic bias, discrimination and inequality.

Introducing themselves, Márcio Burity, Diplomat at the UN…

Power and inequality is reproduced through our algorithms. It’s a simple fact and it’s something the industry as a whole is starting to become aware of. Their design is a direct reflection of the cultural values of the designers and the company that makes them, but it also mediates and shapes the cultural practices of community engagement, in the case of online algorithms. Automated decisions are trained on cultural data, such as a diverse array of tastes from different cultures, and it ‘learns’ to predict and move in ways accustomed to that taste group’s cultural preferences.

There are numerous examples…

With increasing infiltration of data-collecting technologies in our everyday lives, data privacy is a hot topic and one with lots of contrasts in approaches. This article weighs up the reasons why we don’t have enough privacy, as well as reasons to give up our privacy for the greater good. How can solutions for regulation navigate these issues, and where do we draw the line? These are some key questions that need to be considered by the industry.

GDPR could deter solutions to Automated Bias

It is well known by now that many AI are flawed by biases, significantly disadvantaging certain groups by gender, race, religion, class and…

With the increase in globalisation, ethical principles for AI follow the same global outlook. In doing so, variations in cultural values and ideologies are being overlooked and instead AI is designed for the values of the global west. This article explores the issue of having a global standard for AI ethics and whether human morals can, or should, be reduced to principles at all.

Bias and ethics — How do we define what is and isn’t biased?

Ethics is a difficult thing to define because, despite some general rules and principles that govern our modes of behaviour as collective societies, like human rights, many ethical choices are made on a personal basis. …

We are in an age where our news is shared with us digitally, based on our preferences. An age where Netflix shows us the most relevant films for us, and Amazon knows exactly what we want to buy next. The big data age is the age of convenience and comfort, where we don’t have to think about what we want to watch, buy or get informed about. If hearing that doesn’t already, it’s time to get uncomfortable.

Every day that passes by is another day where big technology companies get to decide what you like. With constant digital interventions into…

Algorithms are being used as diagnosing tools in healthcare, systems for identifying potential combinations for the creation of medicines, vaccines and treatments, they assess who is most likely to commit crimes, vote conservative, get an A in their exam, or buy a new TV. The data and solutions they provide us appear to be a sophisticated intervention for driving change and making the world a safer, richer and healthier place. However, as Morozov notes in his award winning book, this tendency towards technological solutionism neglects the imperfections made by design and the consequences of these digital technologies.

Many algorithms are…