Ethical AI
I’m learning about AI (not the tech… that’s too deeply geeky for me), but the way it’s used, the ethics that should apply to it, and how much we still need humans behind AI.
After reading the 3-part series, What You Need to Know About Machine Learning on Phrasee’s blog, I got to snooping and found their Ethics Policy. I’m impressed, and I truly wish I had the need to and could afford to hire them simply because of it.
Ethics in the use of our data is a hot issue right now and one that I feel pretty passionately about… to the point where, on a daily basis, I contemplate opting out of a certain social media giant… if only everyone I know wasn’t on it. You can read my article about Facebook’s unethical sentiment analysis experiment back in 2014…. but you’ve probably heard about some of their recent “questionable” practices (if not, I suggest a quick Google search for “Facebook ethics”).
Number one, “We won’t use data to target vulnerable populations.” sounds crazy (I mean, what? who would do that? and how?), but is absolutely being done by unscrupulous companies, as I first learned from the must-watch TED talk, We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads.
So, while learning about said social media giants and their shenanigans can be soberingly disillusioning (*big word nerd alert*), the strength and conviction of AI companies like Phrasee (and IBM, who has a similar ethical code BTW), is refreshing and makes me feel a little bit better about being a human working in technology.
