AI Now Symposium Highlights Ethics, Labor Organizing, and Tech Accountability
The AI Now Institute hosts its annual symposium, focusing on facial recognition, social inequality, and labor organizing amid a turbulent year of tech scandals. The event reviews major industry upheavals and charts a path forward for responsible AI.
The AI Now Institute at NYU hosts its third annual AI Now Symposium at a packed Skirball Theatre, focusing on the core themes of ethics, organizing, and accountability. Panel discussions examine critical topics including facial recognition technologies, the connection between AI systems and social inequality, and the growing intersection of AI research and labor organizing.
Co-founders Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker open the event by reviewing a chaotic year in the tech industry, noting that AI systems continue to expand in power against a stark political backdrop. They present a visual timeline of major news events to illustrate the sheer volume of significant incidents involving the social implications of artificial intelligence.
The year's review highlights an unprecedented wave of tech industry controversies, with Facebook facing a "royal flush" of scandals that include the Cambridge Analytica fallout, massive data breaches, discrimination lawsuits, and accusations of enabling ethnic violence. Google also faces intense scrutiny as reports emerge about the company building artificial intelligence systems for the Department of Defense's drone program.