{"id":561,"date":"2020-04-26T18:00:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sigai.acm.org\/aimatters\/blog\/?p=561"},"modified":"2020-04-26T18:00:43","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T18:00:43","slug":"covid-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sigai.acm.org\/main\/2020\/04\/26\/covid-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AI is in the news and in policy discussions regarding COVID-19, both about ways to help fight the pandemic and in terms of ethical issues that policymakers should address. Michael Corkery\u00a0and\u00a0David Gelles in the NY Times article \u201cRobots Welcome to Take Over, as Pandemic Accelerates Automation<\/a>\u201d, suggest that \u201csocial-distancing directives, which are likely to continue in some form after the crisis subsides, could prompt more industries to accelerate their use of automation.\u201d An MIT Technology Review article by Genevieve Bell, \u201cWe need mass surveillance to fight covid-19\u2014but it doesn\u2019t have to be creepy<\/a>\u201d looks at the pros and cons of AI technology and if we now have the chance to \u201creinvent the way we collect and share personal data while protecting individual privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public Health and Privacy\nIssues<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liza Lin and Timothy W. Martin in \u201cHow\nCoronavirus Is Eroding Privacy<\/a>\u201d write about how technology is being developed to track and monitor\nindividuals for slowing the pandemic, but that this \u201craises concerns about\ngovernment overreach.\u201d Here is an excerpt from that WSJ article: \u201cGovernments\nworldwide are using digital surveillance technologies to track the spread of\nthe coronavirus pandemic, raising concerns about the erosion of privacy. Many\nAsian governments are tracking people through their cellphones to identify\nthose suspected of being infected with COVID-19, without prior consent.\nEuropean countries are tracking citizens’ movements via telecommunications data\nthat they claim conceals individuals’ identities; American officials are drawing\ncellphone location data from mobile advertising firms to monitor crowds, but\nnot individuals. The biggest privacy debate concerns involuntary use of\nsmartphones and other digital data to identify everyone with whom the infected\nhad recent contact, then testing and quarantining at-risk individuals to halt\nthe further spread of the disease. Public health officials say surveillance\nwill be necessary in the months ahead, as quarantines are relaxed and the virus\nremains a threat while a vaccine is developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn South Korea, investigators scan smartphone data to find\nwithin 10 minutes people who might have caught the coronavirus from someone\nthey met. Israel has tapped its Shin Bet intelligence unit, usually focused on\nterrorism, to track down potential coronavirus patients through telecom data.\nOne U.K. police force uses drones to monitor public areas, shaming residents\nwho go out for a stroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Covid-19 pandemic is ushering in a new era of digital\nsurveillance and rewiring the world\u2019s sensibilities about data privacy. Governments\nare imposing new digital surveillance tools to track and monitor individuals.\nMany citizens have welcomed tracking technology intended to bolster defenses\nagainst the novel coronavirus. Yet some privacy advocates are wary, concerned\nthat governments might not be inclined to unwind such practices after the\nhealth emergency has passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAuthorities in Asia, where the virus first emerged, have\nled the way. Many governments didn\u2019t\nseek permission from individuals before tracking their cellphones<\/a> to\nidentify suspected coronavirus patients. South Korea, China and Taiwan, after\ninitial outbreaks, chalked up early successes in flattening infection curves to\ntheir use of tracking programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Europe and the U.S., where privacy laws and expectations\nare more stringent, governments and companies are taking different approaches.\nEuropean nations monitor\ncitizen movement by tapping telecommunications data<\/a> that they say\nconceals individuals\u2019 identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American officials are drawing\ncellphone location data from mobile advertising firms<\/a> to track the\npresence of crowds\u2014but not individuals. Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Google\nrecently announced plans\nto launch a voluntary app<\/a> that health officials can use to reverse-engineer\nsickened patients\u2019 recent whereabouts\u2014provided they agree to provide such\ninformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany Changes Course\non Contact Tracing App<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politico\nreports<\/a> that \u201cthe\nGerman government announced today\u201d (4\/26) \u201cthat Berlin would adopt a \u2018decentralized\u2019\napproach to a coronavirus contact-tracing app \u2014 now backing an approach\nchampioned by U.S. tech giants Apple and Google. \u2018We will promote the use of a\nconsistently decentralized software architecture for use in Germany,\u2019 the\ncountry\u2019s Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Twitter, echoing an interview<\/a> in the Welt am Sonntag\nnewspaper. Earlier this month, Google and Apple announced they would team up to\nunlock their smartphones\u2019 Bluetooth capabilities to allow developers to build\ninteroperable contact tracing apps. Germany is now abandoning a centralized\napproach spearheaded by the German-led Pan-European Privacy-Preserving\nProximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) project. Berlin\u2019s U-turn comes after a group of six\norganizations on Friday urged Angela Merkel\u2019s government to reassess\nplans for a smartphone app that traces potential coronavirus infections,\nwarning that it does not do enough to protect user data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSF Program on Fairness in Artificial Intelligence (FAI)\nin Collaboration with Amazon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new National\nScience Foundation solicitation NSF\n20-566<\/a> has been announced by the Directorate for Computer and\nInformation Science and Engineering, Division of Information and Intelligent\nSystems, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, and Division\nof Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI is in the news and in policy discussions regarding COVID-19, both about ways to help fight the pandemic and in terms of ethical issues that policymakers should address. Michael Corkery\u00a0and\u00a0David Gelles in the NY Times article \u201cRobots Welcome to Take Over, as Pandemic Accelerates Automation\u201d, suggest that \u201csocial-distancing directives, which are likely to continue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCOVID AI - ACM SIGAI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sigai.acm.org\/main\/2020\/04\/26\/covid-ai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COVID AI - ACM SIGAI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AI is in the news and in policy discussions regarding COVID-19, both about ways to help fight the pandemic and in terms of ethical issues that policymakers should address. 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