AI Matters: our blog
Joint Panel of ACM and IEEE
The new joint ACM/IEEE group met recently via conference calls to explore the idea of proposing a session at the 2018 RightsCon in Toronto on a topic of mutual interest to the two organizations’ ethics and policy members. Your SIGAI members Simson Garfinkel, Sven Koenig, Nick Mattei, and Larry Medsker are participating in the group. Stuart Shapiro, Chair of ACM US Public Policy Council, is representing ACM. Members from IEE include John C. Havens, Executive Director of the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and Dr. Ansgar Koene, University of Nottingham and working group chair for IEEE Standard on Algorithm Bias Considerations.
The group meets again soon to propose a panel in the area of bias and algorithmic accountability. SIGAI members are welcome to nominate panel members and volunteer. SIGAI members are also encouraged to contribute ideas that could focus the discussion and meet the following RightsCon goals:
– including speakers from a diverse range of backgrounds
– addressing an important challenge to human rights in the digital age
– engaging participants in a way that inspires real-world outcomes
(e.g., new policy approaches and innovative technology solutions)
– introducing new voices, new concepts, and fresh take on an issue
– having the potential to encourage cross-sector collaborations
– using an innovative format to present the idea and generate outcomes
The call for proposals mentions “Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Algorithmic Accountability” as one of their program “buckets”. RightsCon is accepting presentation proposals until November 24, 2017. Sessions will have 16 program buckets, which cover topics including Digital Security and Encryption, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Algorithmic Accountability, Misinformation, Journalism, and the Future of Online Media.
Computing Community Consortium
On October 23-24, 2017, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will hold the Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs Symposium to address the current and future contribution of computing and its role in issues of societal needs.
Computing Community Consortium says it “has hosted dozens of research visioning workshops to imagine, discuss, and debate the future of computing and its role in addressing societal needs. The second CCC Computing Research symposium draws these topics into a program designed to illuminate current and future trends in computing and the potential for computing to address national challenges.”
You may also want to check out the CCC Blog at http://www.cccblog.org/ for policy issues of common interest for SIGAI members.
IEEE and ACM Collaborations on ATA
At last month’s USACM Panel at the National Press Club (reported in the AI Matters policy blog last time), I had the opportunity to talk with one of the panelists Dr. Ansgar Koene, Senior Research Fellow: UnBias, CaSMa & Horizon Policy Impact. Ansgar is at the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, University of Nottingham, and he is the working group chair for IEEE Standard on Algorithm Bias Considerations. Be sure to see Ansgar’s article about the ‘AI gaydar’ in Conversation: https://theconversation.com/machine-gaydar-ai-is-reinforcing-stereotypes-that-liberal-societies-are-trying-to-get-rid-of-83837.
Following the USACM Panel at the National Press Club, attendees discussed ways to bring together the voices of ACM and IEEE on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability. One opportunity is at RightsCon Toronto: May 16-18, 2018. The call for proposals mentions “Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Algorithmic Accountability” as one of their program “buckets”. RightsCon is accepting proposals for presentations until November 24, 2017. Sessions will have 16 program buckets, which cover topics including Digital Security and Encryption, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Algorithmic Accountability to Misinformation, Journalism, and the Future of Online Media.
A new initiative is Local Champions at RightsCon Toronto, which features leading voices in Canada’s digital rights landscape. They plan to support thought leadership, program guidance, and topic identification to ensure that the most pressing issues are represented at RightsCon.
Dr. Koene also shared information about the IEEE P7001 Working Group on the IEEE Standard on Transparency of Autonomous Systems http://sites.ieee.org/sagroups-7001/. This working group is chaired by Prof. Alan Winfield who is also very interested in the idea of data recorders, like airplane ‘black boxes’, to provide insight into behavior of autonomous vehicles for accident investigation. http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~a-winfield/
Please share additional opportunities for SIGAI members to join with other groups working on issues in algorithmic transparency and accountability. We welcome also your comments on the many AI applications and technologies that should be included in our focus on public policy.
New Conference: AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
ACM SIGAI is pleased to announce the launch of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, to be co-located with AAAI-18, February 2-3, 2018 in New Orleans. The Call for Papers is included below and is also available at http://www.aies-conference.com/. Please note the October 31 deadline for submissions.
AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
February 2-3, 2018
New Orleans, USA
http://www.aies-conference.com/
As AI is becoming more pervasive in our life, its impact on society is more significant and concerns and issues are raised regarding aspects such as value alignment, data bias and data policy, regulations, and workforce displacement. Only a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder effort can find the best ways to address these concerns, including experts of various disciplines, such as AI, computer science, ethics, philosophy, economics, sociology, psychology, law, history, and politics. In order to address these issues in a scientific context, AAAI and ACM have joined forces to start a new conference, the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society.
The first edition of this conference will be co-located with AAAI-18 on February 2-3, 2018 in New Orleans, USA. The program of the conference will include peer-reviewed paper presentations, invited talks, panels, and working sessions.
The conference welcomes contributions on a broad set of topics, included the following ones:
- Building ethical AI systems
- Value alignment
- Moral machine decision making
- Trust and explanations in AI systems
- Fairness and Transparency in AI systems
- Ethical design and development of AI systems
- AI for social good
- Human-level AI
- Controlling AI
- Impact of AI on workforce
- Societal impact of AI
- AI and law
Submitted papers should adopt a scientific approach to address any questions related to the above topics. Moreover, they should clearly establish the research contribution, its relevance, and its relation to prior research. All submissions must be made in the appropriate format, and within the specified length limit; details and a LaTeX template can be found at the conference web site.
We solicit papers (pdf file) of up to 6 pages + 1 page for references (AAAI format), submitted through the Easychair system.
We expect papers submitted by researchers of several disciplines (AI, computer science, philosophy, economics, law, and others). The program committee includes members that are experts in all the relevant areas, to ensure appropriate review of papers.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: To accommodate the publishing traditions of different fields, authors of accepted papers can ask that only a one-page abstract of the paper appear in the proceedings, along with a URL pointing to the full paper. Authors should guarantee the link to be reliable for at least two years. This option is available to accommodate subsequent publication in journals that would not consider results that have been published in preliminary form in a conference proceedings. Such papers must be submitted electronically and formatted just like papers submitted for full-text publication.
Results previously published or presented at another archival conference prior to this one, or published (or accepted for publication) at a journal prior to the submission deadline, can be submitted only if the author intends to publish the paper as a one-page abstract.
The proceedings of the conference will be published in the ACM Digital Library.
Among all papers, a best paper will be selected by the program committee and will be awarded the AI, People, and Society best paper award, sponsored by the Partnership on AI. The award is $1,000. Also, the winner will be able to participate in a global competition among several conferences, for a grand prize of $7,500.
A selected subset of the accepted papers will have the opportunity to be considered for journal publication in the JAIR special track on AI and Society (http://www.jair.org/specialtrack-aisoc-call.html).
Important dates:
Submission: October 31st, 2017
Notification: December 15th, 2017
Final version: March 1st, 2017
(Note: the final version due date is after the conference dates, to include feedback from the conference discussions).
Conference program co-chairs:
AI: Francesca Rossi, IBM Research and University of Padova
AI and workforce: Jason Furman, Harvard University
AI and philosophy: Huw Price, Cambridge University
AI and law: TBD
More information will be available soon on the conference web site.
National Press Club USACM Panel
Your Public Policy Officer attended the USACM Panel on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability on Thursday, Sept 14th at the National Press Club. The panelists were moderator Simson Garfinkel, Jeanna Neefe Matthews, Nicholas Diakopoulos, Dan Rubins, Geoff Cohen, and Ansgar Koene. USACM Chair Stuart Shapiro opened the event, and Ben Sneiderman provided comments from the audience.
USACM and EUACM have identified and codified a set of principles intended to ensure fairness in this evolving policy and technology ecosystem. These were a focus of the panel discussion and are as follows:(1) awareness;
(2) access and redress;
(3) accountability;
(4) explanation;
(5) data provenance;
(6) audit-ability; and
(7) validation and testing.
See also the full letter in the September, 2017, issue of CACM.
The panel and audience discussion ranged from frameworks for evaluating algorithms and creating policy for fairness to examples of algorithmic abuse. Language for clear communication with the public and policymakers, as well as even scientists, was a concern — as has been discussed in our Public Policy blog. Algorithms in the strict sense may not always be the issue, but rather the data used to build and train a system, especially when the system is used for prediction and decision making. Much was said about the types of bias and unfairness that can be embedded in modern AI and machine learning systems. The essence of the concerns includes the ability to explain how a system works, the need to develop models of algorithmic transparency, and how policy or an independent clearinghouse might identify fair and problematic algorithmic systems.
Please read more about the panel discussion at https://www.acm.org/public-policy/algorithmic-panel
and
watch the very informative YouTube video of the panel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDW-nM8idgg&feature=youtu.be