Responsibility & AI: ‘We all have a role when it comes to shaping the future’ — from re-work.co by Fiona McEvoy

Excerpt:

As we slowly begin to delegate tasks that have until now been the sole purview of human judgment, there is understandable trepidation amongst some factions. Will creators build artificially intelligent machines that act in accordance with our core human values? Do they know what these moral imperatives are and when they are relevant? Are makers thoroughly stress-testing deep learning systems to ensure ethical decision-making? Are they trying to understand how AI can challenge key principles, like dignity and respect?

All the time we are creating new dependencies, and placing increasing amounts of faith in the engineers, programmers and designers responsible for these systems and platforms.

For reasons that are somewhat understandable, at present much of this tech ethics talk happens behind closed doors, and typically only engages a handful of industry and academic voices. Currently, these elite figures are the only participants in a dialogue that will determine all of our futures. At least in part, I started YouTheData.com because I wanted to bring “ivory tower” discussions down to the level of the engaged consumer, and be part of efforts to democratize this particular consultation process. As a former campaigner, I place a lot of value in public awareness and scrutiny.

To be clear, the message I wish to convey is not a criticism of the worthy academic and advisory work being done in this field (indeed, I have some small hand in this myself). It’s about acknowledging that engineers, technologists – and now ethicists, philosophers and others – still ultimately need public assent and a level of consumer “buy in” that is only really possible when complex ideas are made more accessible.

 

 

Digital Surgery’s AI platform guides surgical teams through complex procedures — from venturebeat.com by Kyle Wiggers

Excerpt:

Digital Surgery, a health tech startup based in London, today launched what it’s calling the world’s first dynamic artificial intelligence (AI) system designed for the operating room. The reference tool helps support surgical teams through complex medical procedures — cofounder and former plastic surgeon Jean Nehme described it as a “Google Maps” for surgery.

“What we’ve done is applied artificial intelligence … to procedures … created with surgeons globally,” he told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “We’re leveraging data with machine learning to build a [predictive] system.”

 

 

Why business Lleaders need to embrace artificial intelligence — from thriveglobal.com by Howard Yu
How companies should work with AI—not against it.