Is ethical AI possible?

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean Illing talks with Timnit Gebru, the founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute. She studies the ethics of artificial intelligence and is an outspoken critic of companies developing new AI systems. Sean and Timnit discuss the power dynamics in the world of AI, the discriminatory outcomes that these technologies can cause, and the need for accountability and transparency in the field. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: Timnit Gebru (@timnitGebru), founder, Distributed AI Research Institute References: “The Exploited Labor Behind Artificial Intelligence" by Adrienne Williams, Milagros Miceli, and Timnit Gebru (Noema; Oct. 13, 2022) “Effective Altruism is Push a Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’” by Timnit Gebru (Wired; Nov. 30, 2022) Datasheets for Datasets by Timnit Gebru, et al. (CACM; Dec. 2021) “In Emergencies, Should You Trust a Robot?” by John Toon (Georgia Tech; Feb. 29, 2016) “We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says” by Karen Hao (MIT Technology Review; Dec. 4, 2020) “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Timnit Gebru, et al. (Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency; March 2021) Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Patrick Boyd Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get Disney Plus and Hulu in a brand new bundle.
0:03.5	Better together for only $9.99 a month.
0:06.0	Offer valid for eligible subscribers only, terms apply.
0:08.8	See DisneyBundle.com for details.
0:37.8	Where the future works, get started at slack.com slash DHQ.
0:44.4	Algorithms are a black box.
0:48.8	They're present in all kinds of technologies we interact with every day.
0:53.2	And they shape all kinds of real world outcomes.
0:56.3	But we don't know how.
0:59.8	You can think of an algorithm kind of like a recipe.
1:03.8	It's a program that takes inputs or ingredients and serves up particular outputs like a cake
1:11.6	based on a set of instructions.
1:14.4	We know that we're the ones providing the ingredients in the form of what we click on, Google,
1:20.6	or give hearts and likes to.
1:22.7	And we see the results like targeted ads or recommended posts.
1:27.4	But most of us have no idea what the recipes are.
1:31.4	And the people who design and use algorithms don't have to tell us.
1:36.6	Whether it's in low-stake stuff like social media or in really, really high-stake stuff
1:42.2	like police run facial recognition programs, the algorithms are still mysteries to us.
1:49.4	And when it comes to artificial intelligence, we're even more in the dark.
1:55.8	If algorithms are like recipes, then AI is like someone who's only seen a lot of cooking
2:01.9	shows, but never actually cooked, and they're let loose in the kitchen with no recipe.
	...

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