New ethics fund finances discussion and research about artificial intelligence: shining an light on the potential and pitfalls of technological development. From the article:

A $27 million fund aimed at applying artificial intelligence to the public interest has announced the first targets for its beneficence: $7.6 million will be split unequally between MIT’s Media Lab, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and seven smaller research efforts around the world.

The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund was created by Reid Hoffman, Pierre Omidyar and the Knight Foundation back in January; the intention was to ensure that “social scientists, ethicists, philosophers, faith leaders, economists, lawyers and policymakers” have a say in how AI is developed and deployed….

Digital Asia Hub, FAT ML and ITS Rio will be hosting conferences and workshops to which experts across fields will be invited, advancing and enriching the conversations around various AI issues. ITS Rio also will be translating debates on the topics — a critical task, since there are important thinkers worldwide and these conversations shouldn’t be limited by something as last-century as native language.

On the research side, AI Now will be looking at bias in data collection and healthcare; the Leverhulme Center will be looking at interpretability of AI-related data; Data & Society will be conducting “ethnographically-informed” studies on the human element of AI and data — for example, how demographic imbalances in who runs real estate businesses might inform the systems they create and use.

h/t @FullArtIntel