What Can AI Experts Learn from Buddhism? A New Approach to Machine-Learning Ethics Aims to Find Out

Rapid advances in AI have spawned a number of recent initiatives that aim to convince engineers, programmers, and others to prioritize ethical considerations in their work-but almost all of them have originated in rich Western countries. An effort from the huge engineering association IEEE is now trying to change that, with its own AI ethics proposal that it says will be a global, multilingual collaboration.

In the past two years alone, a raft of new efforts to explore ethics in AI have launched, including the Elon Musk-backed nonprofit OpenAI, the corporate alliance Partnership on AI, Carnegie Mellon University’s AI ethics research center, and the Ethics & Society research unit at Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind.

But most of these projects are based in the U.S. or U.K., are led by a small group of researchers, and issue updates only in English, which could limit their ability to foster AI that benefits all of humanity, not just those in developed countries.

Since 2016, a group called the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems has been writing a document called “Ethically Aligned Design” that recommends societal and policy guidelines for technologies such as chatbots and home robots. This week, the group unveiled an updated version of the document that integrates feedback from people in East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and other regions.

Many of those comments came from members the initiative recruited from Brazil, China, Iran, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Russian Federation, and Thailand this year. The group now numbers about 250 people worldwide and continues to grow, according to executive committee chair Raja Chatila.

These international members translated parts of the document into their native languages so it could be circulated widely within their countries, and they submitted reports about the state of AI ethics in their regions to the initiative’s executive committee.

To further diversify the viewpoints, the initiative created a “classical ethics” committee to identify non-Western value systems, such as Buddhism, or Confucianism, which could be incorporated into the document’s ethical guidelines. The group also solicited feedback from outreach organizations, like AI4All, that teach women and people of color about AI.

It’s not yet clear how the initiative will meld these different traditions and viewpoints-the final version won’t be published until 2019-but the group has some preliminary ideas. Citing the Buddhist belief that nothing exists in isolation could remind AI designers that they bear responsibility for the systems they create, for example. Similarly, teaching developers about the sub-Saharan philosophical tradition Ubuntu, which emphasizes the value of community, could prompt them to “work closely both with ethicists and the target audience to ascertain whether their needs are identified and met,” according to the latest version of the document.

In spite of its earnestness, there’s no guarantee the venture will produce results. Like other AI ethics guidelines in the works, “Ethically Aligned Design” just makes recommendations; it has no way of enforcing its suggestions. But growing awareness about the ways AI can discriminate against users if designers don’t take diversity into account-and increasing consumer demands for accountability-point to the value of thinking globally when formulating ethical principles for AI.

Automakers and tech firms want high-definition maps to help robo-cars drive, but the best way to build them remains unclear. So says a new report from Bloomberg.

Two approaches: “One aims to create complete high-definition maps that will let the driverless… Read more

Automakers and tech firms want high-definition maps to help robo-cars drive, but the best way to build them remains unclear. So says a new report from Bloomberg.

Two approaches: “One aims to create complete high-definition maps that will let the driverless cars of the future navigate all on their own,” explains Bloomberg. “Another creates maps piece-by-piece, using sensors in today’s vehicles.”

But: Those approaches contain scope to do things differently. “Every self-driving map looks different because each one depends on the sensor system of the vehicle that creates it,” says Bloomberg.

Many players: Waymo is thought to be leading the way, but other firms-including Mobileye, Tesla, and TomTom-are in the scrum. Plus, says Bloomberg, a “slew” of startups are “taking different stabs at the problem, each gobbling up venture capital.” All use subtly different approaches.

Winner takes all? Andreessen-Horowitz partner Benedict Evans says these maps have a network effect: a bigger fleet of cars using one type of maps will get better, more regularly updated maps faster than a smaller one would. So there’s plenty to play for.

Every year since 2001 we’ve picked what we call the 10 Breakthrough Technologies. People often ask, what exactly do you mean by “breakthrough”? It’s a reasonable question-some of our picks haven’t yet reached widespread use, while others may be on the…

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Every year since 2001 we’ve picked what we call the 10 Breakthrough Technologies. People often ask, what exactly do you mean by “breakthrough”? It’s a reasonable question-some of our picks haven’t yet reached widespread use, while others may be on the cusp of becoming commercially available. What we’re really looking for is a technology, or perhaps even a collection of technologies, that will have a profound effect on our lives.

The social network is working with economists to throw light on America’s widening income gap.

The news: Politico reports that Facebook is sharing data with Stanford economist Raj Chetty and his researchers. Facebook confirmed the partnership to Politico… Read more

The social network is working with economists to throw light on America’s widening income gap.

The news: Politico reports that Facebook is sharing data with Stanford economist Raj Chetty and his researchers. Facebook confirmed the partnership to Politico, while Chetty said he’s “using social networks, and measuring interactions there, to understand the role of social capital.”

The data: It’s an economist’s dream. Sixty-eight percent of American adults are on Facebook, sharing gobs of details-about education, employment, social ties, pastimes, and more. That can be used to determine socioeconomic class. (Sources tell Politico the information is anonymized and its users vetted.)

Now what? Neither Facebook nor Chetty told Politico what the end goal is. But Zuck’s been vocal about ” real divergence between opportunity available in small towns and big cities,” and he supports universal basic income. He likely hopes new insights can shift the needle, so 1 percent of Americans no longer hold 40 percent of the nation’s wealth.

On Toronto’s waterfront, where the eastern part of the city meets Lake Ontario, is a patchwork of cement and dirt. It’s home to plumbing and electrical supply shops, parking lots, winter boat storage, and a hulking silo built in 1943 to store soybeans-a…

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On Toronto’s waterfront, where the eastern part of the city meets Lake Ontario, is a patchwork of cement and dirt. It’s home to plumbing and electrical supply shops, parking lots, winter boat storage, and a hulking silo built in 1943 to store soybeans-a relic of the area’s history as a shipping port.

The world’s most powerful rocket may be good for more commercial missions than Mars supply trips. One astronomer says it could open access to lots of asteroids on which humans could strike it rich mining metals.

Backstory: Earlier this month, SpaceX… Read more

The world’s most powerful rocket may be good for more commercial missions than Mars supply trips. One astronomer says it could open access to lots of asteroids on which humans could strike it rich mining metals.

Backstory: Earlier this month, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket. It’s twice as powerful, and costs a quarter as much to launch, as its closest competitor, Delta IV Heavy.

What’s new: Falcon Heavy’s power could get humans to more asteroids to tap them for supplies. In fact, reports Gizmodo, Martin Elvis from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics predicts it could increase the number of viable asteroids by a factor of 15. That could, theoretically, be worth tens of billions of dollars if the rocks contain, say, platinum.

Why it matters: Add space prospectors to the list of people who could help SpaceX profit massively from its lead in commercial spaceflight. Tellingly, Quartz notes that China and Europe have huge respect for what SpaceX has achieved with Falcon Heavy and acknowledge that they’re years away from such a feat.