Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review |
There’s more attention on AI’s influence than ever before.
In our new socially distanced, remote-everything reality, conversations about algorithmic harms have come to a head. Systems that had been at the fringe, like HireVue’s face-scanning algorithms and workplace surveillance tools, were going mainstream. Others, like tools to monitor and evaluate students, were spinning up in real time. In August, after a spectacular failure of the UK government to replace in-person exams with an algorithm for university admissions, hundreds of students gathered in London to chant, “F—- the algorithm.”
So here are five hopes for AI in the coming year:
- Reduce corporate influence in research
- Refocus on common-sense understanding
- Empower marginalized researchers
- Center the perspectives of impacted communities
- Codify guard rails into regulation
Karen Hao is the senior AI reporter at MIT Technology Review, covering the field’s cutting-edge research and its impacts on society. She received her B.S. in mechanical engineering and minor in energy studies from MIT.
