Ethics and Governance of AI

BKC Responsible AI Fellow Rumman Chowdhury is interviewed about bridging the gap between people and technology.

BKC Affiliate Joseph Bak-Coleman, BKC Director James Mickens, and BKC Faculty Associate Zeynep Tufekci write to advocate for an intergovernmental panel to synthesize the evidence…

BKC Affiliate Siva Mathiyazhagan writes about the need to eradicate caste and to build a safe, inclusive, just digital India.

BKC Affiliate Bruce Schneier delivers a keynote speech during the RSA Conference in San Francisco on April 25, 2023 about the risks and promise of AI for democracy.

BKC Responsible AI Fellow Rumman Chowdhury discusses ideas for regulating AI with KQED. 

BKC Affiliates Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier write about the trustworthiness of AI technologies and their corporate owners.

BKC Affiliates Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier write about how AI will change the nature of campaigning.

BKC Affiliates Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier write about AI's potential to advance the public good by helping democracy.

BKC Responsible AI Fellow Rumman Chowdhury advocates for global oversight of AI. 

BKC Affiliate Bruce Schneier predicts a future wave of email scams that will take advantage of generative AI.

BKC Affiliate Aviv Ovadya comments on the need for cross-cutting, international regulation of AI.

BKC Affiliate Aviv Ovadya speaks about the need for more robust testing for GPT-4. 

BKC Rebooting Social Media Visiting Scholar Yong Jin Park cautions against hype around generative AI, warning that celebrations and fears around the technology are both overblown.

BKC Affiliates Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier write about the potential influence of ChatGPT and generative AI on lobbying.

BKC Fellow Juliana Castro-Varon writes as a graphic designer about the effect AI image generators will have on a potentially unsuspecting public who might not understand how the…

BKC Affiliate Ryan Merkley writes about the relationship between generative AI, art, and intellectual property law.

"Emad [CEO] at Stability [AI, the open-source AI company,] says he’s ‘democratizing AI.’ Well, wouldn’t it be nice to actually be using democratic processes to figure out…

"...what are the kinds of harms and stereotypes that exist in society that these machines can pick up on? These models are simply reflecting the data that is being put into…

"Democracy is fundamentally a human way of organizing ourselves, and where an AI, whether it's a ChatGPT that is writing human text or another AI that is figuring out human…

"My observation would be that the serious legislation that's been successfully passed for regulating machine learning in general has been painfully slow and insufficient to…

Jessica Fjeld is quoted discussing the viability of lawsuits involving generative AI alleged to infringe upon artists' copyright claims. "It’s a…

"So while it’s impossible to predict what a future filled with A.I. lobbyists will look like, it will probably make the already influential and powerful even more so." …

"A group of researchers, builders and activists came together to discuss platform cooperativism and the intersection with the web3 movement. We touched on some of the key…

BKC Faculty Associate Zeynep Tufekci

Aviv Ovadya, BKC Affiliate, speaks about ChatGPT, its potential, and related concerns.

Sandra Wachter, BKC Faculty Associate, discusses ChatGPT and its concerns for academics and education. 

BKC Faculty Associate Judith Donath speaks about Twitter’s demise and the potential of any possible replacements.

BKC Fellow Sandra Cortesi discusses generative AI storytelling. …

In a new paper, RSM Visiting Scholar Yong Jin Park and co-author S. Mo Jones-Jang explore the response of human users to AI failures, and how those…

BKC Fellow Florian Martin-Bariteau assembled a report to the Council of Europe on blockchain opportunities. "The impact of the blockchains for Human Rights,…

Yong Jin Park, RSM Visiting Scholar, analyzes the digital inequality in AI.  "This study focuses on digital divide in the context of access, use, and perceptual…

BKC Fellow Florian Martin-Bariteau speaks about the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act on the Law Bytes podcast. 

Virgílio Almeida takes a look at the relationship between algorithms and institutions.

Nathan Matias and Lucas Wright provide useful tools to understand how adaptive algorithms can make an impact on individuals and society.

In a Science article outlining the risks surrounding software that can identify anonymous chess players, Alexandra Wood says that it's part of a bigger issue: “Privacy threats are…

James Mickens and Hilary Ross discuss the drawbacks and potential solutions of social media algorithms.

Jad Esber and Scott Kominers offer a framework for designing reputation-based systems to encourage quality contributions and participation on platforms.

Baobao Zheng and colleagues explore how researchers view topics in artificial intelligence

Nani Jansen Reventlow explains the dangers of automating government services

Jessica Fjeld describes the increasing relevance of AI in our lives and reflects on the importance of self-compassion.

Woodrow Hartzog shares his "theory of fault" for autonomous system failures

Elizabeth Renieris is interviewed about her work in AI ethics.

Sandra Wachter weighs in on the ethical implications of a computer tracking workers’ emotions.

Ben Green opines that people may put too much faith in human oversight of AI.

Jessica Fjeld offers legal insights on art created by artificial intelligence.

Bruce Schneier is interviewed about the future of AI hacking.

Nani Jansen Reventlow writes about the impact of AI on marginalized groups.

Bruce Schneier and colleague argue AI software can easily pass for real public comments

Mutale Nkonde discusses techno-racism and facial recognition software with CNN.

Laura Montoya featured by HBS Digital Initiative

Shreya Tewari on facial recognition technology

Nani Jansen Reventlow warns of the limitations of facial recognition technology

Bruce Schneier says that AIs will grant our wishes, and then hack them, exploiting our social, political, and economic systems

Tom Zick considers the near-term societal risks of reinforcement learning

Paper from Bruce Schneier explores the implications of AI hackers

2020-2021 affiliate discusses AI copyright and trademark law

Politico speaks with Nani Jansen Reventlow about algorithmic harms and governance

Nani Jansen Reventlow says the Dutch benefits scandal highlights need for EU scrutiny

Mutale Nkonde talks with NPR about facial recognition technology.

Sabelo Mhlambi speaks with BUToday

Doaa Abu Elyounes argues for high standards of transparency and supervision for algorithms

Sandra Wachter describes issues with technology that claims to help with mental health.

David O’Brien discusses open source intelligence

Shagun Jhaver discusses challenges with using AI for content moderation with Digital Privacy News.

Jonathan Zittrain compares AI to asbestos

MIT Technology Review cites “Principled AI” Report

Woodrow Hartzog and Neil Richards argue that Clearview AI is wrongfully trying to use the First Amendment to ensure a freedom to surveil at will.

Sandra Wachter shares concerns about Amazon’s new device

VentureBeat cites paper from Elettra Bietti

"We are living through the tech-enabled unraveling of full-time employment itself”

Sabelo Mhlambi uses ubuntu as a frame to examine artificial intelligence

Mutale Nkonde speaks with Vox about facial recognition technology

BKC’s Ethics & Governance of AI Initiative works with government officials, stakeholders

Improving Risk Management, Building Strong Governance, Accelerating Education and Research

Mutale Nkonde talks to NPR about facial recognition

Mutale Nkonde a guest on LawBytes Podcast

Mutale Nkonde discusses IBM’s letter to the Congressional Black Caucus

Are we ready to have a conversation about racial and social justice in relation to technology? Asks Nani Jansen Reventlow

Mutale Nkonde discusses the impact of surveillance technology on minority communities

Mutale Nkonde weighs in on IBM’s decision

Statement supports the proposed Ordinance Banning Facial Recognition Technology in Boston

An essay by Mutale Nkonde

Mutale Nkonde discusses AI, algorithmic bias, and why we need humans on Notre Dame’s With a Side of Knowledge Podcast

David Weinberger interviews Sabelo Mhlambi

Weinberger joins “Voices in AI” to discuss his views on AI

BKC’s Ram Shankar Siva Kumar joins Frank Nagle to explore Adversarial Machine Learning's impact on businesses.  “Most major companies, including Google, Amazon,…

The pandemic has demonstrated the risks of relying on algorithms to remove harmful content.

Mary Gray proposes several ways that technology can aid in the fight against COVID-19 that help rather than replace healthcare workers.

BKC fellow Baobao Zhang appeared in the PBS documentary series "Great Decisions" on the possibilities and dangers of AI

Zeynep Tufekci says to rebuild trust in the internet, we need to entirely restructure how it operates.

BKC faculty associate Francine Berman on the question that keeps her up at night: Is the Internet of Things a future utopia, or is it a future dystopia?

An overview of smart cities and whether they can be forces for good.

Jessica Fjeld, lead author of Principled AI, answered questions about the report and its implications

Ifeoma Ajunwa testifies in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor

Mutale Nkonde joined Slate's technology podcast What Next: TBD to discuss Alphabet and inherent bias.

Jessica Fjeld warns that giving too much credence to Big Tech is like “asking the fox for guidance on henhouse security procedures.”

Ben Green joins Jasmine McNealy on the New Books in Technology podcast

A team of researchers from BKC recently released a white paper and visualization that mapped AI principles and guidelines to find consensus. 

Lead author Jessica Fjeld discusses new paper "Principled Artificial Intelligence: Mapping Consensus in Ethical and Rights-based Approaches to Principles for AI"

Chinmayi Arun in conversation about the applications of AI and the ethical debates surrounding its use on the podcast Interpreting India.

How public opinion will likely shape the regulation of three applications of AI in the US

Mary Gray on the need for a better social contract when it comes to the rights of informal workers

Mutale Nkonde warns of companies using biometric data

Urs Gasser makes the case for including young people in our conversations about artificial intelligence.

Landlords are using artificial intelligence to vet prospective renters

Researchers argue the dangers of deepfakes are overblown, but they will still require journalists to give thought to how they handle unconfirmed information.

Ryan Budish discusses a report from the National Security Commission on AI

Ariel Herbert-Voss on attacking machine learning systems

Improving algorithms isn’t just good for your company, Mutale Nkonde says

Ifeoma Ajunwa joins WBUR to discuss the use of AI in hiring processes

Meeri Haataja outlines motivations for companies to address AI

Mutale Nkonde discusses the need to regulate deepfakes

How the design of sociotechnical systems can be one means of dismantling or transforming systems of oppression

How can teams prevent structural inequalities and their unconscious biases from affecting AI systems?

The comment concerns proposed revisions to the so-called “disparate impact” rule

Mutale Nkonde discusses how algorithmic decisionmaking systems reproduce structural racism

Mutale Nkonde contributed to courtroom algorithm game from MIT Tech Review

The benefits do not come close to outweighing the risks, writes Woodrow Hartzog

Testimony shared with the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight of the Massachusetts Legislature

How do we make sure that automated hiring platforms do not worsen employment discrimination?

Facebook says its cryptocurrency will be managed by an independent group, but an analysis finds more than half of the members have links back to the social media giant.

Mutale Nkonde says a federal ban is unlikely

HubWeek discussion looks at the ethics of individuals and an industry

What machine learning has to teach the experts in business strategy, and more

While the social media platform’s latest approach to facial recognition appears to respect user’s choices, the offer is so tainted we can’t truly agree to it

BKC fellow Mutale Nkonde shares suggestions for making A.I. a force for good

Kathy Pham reflects on the importance of asking societal and ethical questions in product organizations

Threat of Automation Does Not Change Policy Preferences, finds Baobao Zhang

Mutale Nkonde discusses potential federal restrictions on the use of facial recognition technology

Assembly Student Fellowship convenes students to tackle the biggest issues in tech today.

Armies of workers help power the technological wizardry that is reshaping our lives – but they are invisible and their jobs are precarious.

Domain experts from MIT, Harvard, and RightsCon offer insight into the intersection of emerging tech and human rights.

An interview with David Weinberger

BKC fellow proposes guidelines to build better tools that can safeguard society

Ben Green offers insights into why technology is not an end in itself

Inside the labor-intensive process that enables AI’s creation.

Tech, policy, and ethics training should begin in undergraduate studies, Zuckerman says

Women are far less enthusiastic about the prospect of driverless cars than men, recent studies show.

BKC Faculty Associate Desmond Patton shares his perspective

Predictive AI is too flawed — both technically and ethically — to prevent another El Paso or Dayton.

BKC’s Gretchen Greene talks about the controversy surrounding facial recognition technology

Embedded EthiCS employs a distributed pedagogy that makes ethical reasoning an integral component of courses throughout the standard computer science curriculum.

The rapid adoption of the technology by the government has triggered a debate about the algorithms’ trustworthiness and how they are being used.

What Technical Debt Can Teach Us About the Dangers of AI Working Too Well

Jonathan Zittrain argues that overreliance on artificial intelligence may put us in intellectual debt

Twenty-seven prominent researchers from MIT, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, UC Berkeley and Columbia have signed an open statement of concern regarding the use of actuarial risk…

What could an industry standard for socially responsible, ethically-attuned technologies look like?

Jonathan Zittrain delivers an energetic presentation on the ethical responsibilities of tech companies toward consumers in the era of artificial intelligence.

Exploring AI’s role in the medical field

Ifeoma Ajunwa discusses the interplay of law and technology in the multiple stages of an employee’s journey

An AI fake text generator that can write paragraphs in a style based on just a sentence has raised concerns about its potential to spread false information

Moral Labyrinth is an art installation, workshop, and website inspired by the Value Alignment Problem in AI

BKC affiliate Rediet Abebe uses algorithms and AI to improve access to opportunity for historically marginalized communities.

A Q&A with BKC’s David Weinberger, author of “Everyday Chaos”

Separating fact from fiction in the new Wild West of technology

Artificial intelligence is often hailed as a great catalyst of medical innovation, a way to find cures to diseases that have confounded doctors and make health care more efficient…

BKC Executive Director Urs Gasser comments on Singapore’s Framework for AI

BKC’s Judith Donath lends insight into the role of AI in parenting

Chinmayi Arun hosts a discussion with Microsoft President during 2019 Verify Conference

Sarah Newman discusses her Moral Labyrinth installation

Sabelo Mhlambi discusses why technology cannot be neutral

Chinmayi Arun on how AI affects, and will continue to affect, the Global South

The AI industry runs on the invisible labor of humans working in isolated and often terrible conditions—and the model is spreading to more and more businesses.

When people learn to code, they should also learn about ethics, humanities, and equity. Then perhaps they’ll be more prepared to predict the unintended consequences of their work,…

A BKC team tasked hackathon participants with developing a new resource for policymakers

As San Francisco halts city use of facial recognition technology, CIOs could see more regulatory actions against surveillance technology -- and more limits on their use of data.

Gretchen Greene lends insight into the adoption of facial recognition technology in police departments across the U.S.

Ad tracking services are disturbingly effective.

Yochai Benkler shares concerns about industry’s influence on AI governance and research

10 steps to protect Human Rights

Tech companies often fail to tell users how their data will be employed. Sometimes, the firms can’t even anticipate it themselves.

Siddharth Suri and BKC’s Mary Gray discuss their book “Ghost Work” with GeekWire

The invisible labor that makes our technology run

Advances in robotics, hardware, and artificial intelligence have combined to make a new vision possible for how infrastructure maintenance and repair is carried out.

There is a lot of hype about “smart cities,” but Ben Green argues the tools may have darker potential.

Maintaining agency in a human augmented health system

Frameworks like Ethical OS are a step in the right direction, but are they enough?

Do predictive tools reflect and reinforce punitive practices that drive disparate outcomes? How do data regimes interact with the penal ideology to naturalize these practices?

The short answer is, “yes, but it doesn’t really matter when compared to the choice to use machine learning.”

We should challenge the cult of Singularity. AI won't take over the world

Until AI catches up, tens of thousands of human content moderators all around the world will continue to ingest thousands of posts of potentially toxic posts on social media,…

"It's dangerous, racializing, and has few legitimate uses; facial recognition needs regulation and control on par with nuclear waste."

Some algorithms assume crime in one location leads to others nearby. Others identify specific people most likely to be involved in violence. Both can lead to discrimination.

Fox News in the Trump Era has been labeled “state TV.” Conservatives have complained about liberal media bias for decades. Separate media spheres have created separate realities –…

“We’re beginning to accept that the true complexity of the world far outstrips the laws and models we devise to explain it.”

Ben Green's work as a data scientist in city governments informed his critical view of the "smart city" tech that could influence city life and society for decades to come.

Ben Green argues that cities are adopting “smart” technology without thinking through the political ramifications of the technology.

Making smart speakers and technologies smarter, but what about privacy?

Taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality

Emerging AI and security clearance at the Department of Defense

Is it possible for AI to completely eliminate human bias in the hiring process? Ifeoma Ajunwa doesn't think so.

Data should become an enabler of new models of cooperative growth

Dismantling inequality in AI with marginalized voices in leadership

medical machine-learning systems may be uniquely susceptible to attacks

How do we expand the benefits of machine learning, while protecting privacy?

Incorporating social work and values into community-based AI research

Laying groundwork for resilience against real-world adversarial attacks

"Network Propaganda" shines a light on the dark side of democracy.

The promise of Smart Cities often fails to acknowledge the complex political and social factors of cities, which may cause short and long term harms to residents and democracy

Technical solutions alone aren't enough to address vulnerabilities in machine learning systems

AI and the News Announces winners

Stopping to think about the ethics and unintended consequences of new technology.

Innovation can mean more than just "use new technology."

We should not trust an algorithm unless it can be reviewed and audited in meaningful ways.

Some artists now work with algorithms, and that's giving us a whole new view on human creativity

A research agenda for stakeholders to proactively collaborate and design AI technologies that work with users to improve their health and wellbeing

A legal education simulation puts students in the role of a county judge at a bail hearing, and prompts them to detain or release individual defendants pending trial.

How ethics embeds in technology

Vivek Krishnamurthy discusses the complex challenges of the human rights movement in the face of emerging technology and artificial intelligence.

A survey of existing legal remedies for attacks that have been demonstrated on machine learning systems, and suggests some potential areas of exploration for machine learning…

Embedded EthiCS is a collaboration between philosophers and computer scientists led by faculty from both fields

Even a thoughtfully designed algorithm must make decisions based on inputs from a flawed, imperfect, unpredictable, idiosyncratic real world

There are good reasons to believe that deepfakes will not be a threat in the near future, and that they, in fact, may never pose a significant threat.

"By 2030, most social situations will be facilitated by bots"

Three dangerous properties of AI that could be setting us up for another painful process of self-correction

Harvard students participating in Harvard's inaugural Techtopia group on human rights, ethics, and artificial intelligence.

Technology and Development in an Anti-Black world for a better world require an inquiry into the nature of power.

Hear from students participating in Harvard's inaugural Techtopia group on human rights, ethics, and artificial intelligence.

Professor Jonathan Zittrain discusses the social media giant’s ‘long year’ with Facebook's head of global policy management Monika Bickert.

The problem with “I’m just an engineer” isn’t the engineer’s inability to identify all relevant ethical implications — it’s that they don’t think it’s their job to do so.

Her research focuses on how algorithms can be applied to health, education, and housing.

Greater diversity within research communities can control for bias in this process.

How do people respond to the predictions made by pretrial risk assessments?

There is no easy fix to the asymmetries existing between developing and developed countries.

Artificial intelligence was born of organisational decision-making and state power; it needs human ethics

BKC affliate Paola Villareal wins the Inovators Under 35 Latam award for a tool that reversed 20,000 sentences based on discriminatory arrests

Yochai Benkler argues that the mainstream media is our best hope for tempering the radical right.

The Twitter celebrity's Laughing Room features a laugh track powered by artificial intelligence

An immersive project that examines the intersection of art, technology, and privacy

Algorithms may be intended to have a positive impact, but what happens when the opposite occurs?

A skeptic's guide to the market for AI technologies, especially for government and policymakers

Why is there so often no overlap, no resemblance whatsoever between the news events reported in mainstream print and broadcast coverage?

"The highly asymmetric pattern of media ecosystems we observe on the right and the left, despite the fact that Facebook and Twitter usage is roughly similar on both sides,…

Police gather on social media in order to prevent and investigate criminal activity. But the clues found within aren't always conclusive

Can fake doctored videos — known as “deepfakes” — impact elections?

On the surge in misinformation since the 2016 elections

Technological advances such as artificial intelligence applied to the Internet of things are allowing the machines not only to connect with each other, but also to create their…

"Professional mainstream media — both in its professional centrist model, and in its highly commercially successful right-wing model — is the scaffolding on which everything else…

An open toolkit that helps make smart cities work for everyone

Teaching technologists to think critically about responsibility and ethics is one way to keep our lives from into turning into a Black Mirror episode

On the importance of thinking about both the human rights implications and the ethics of AI.

Journalists have a new task at hand: to report on what information tech companies collect and to surface the extent to which public institutions use personal data

Cynthia Rudin shares her 10 minute presentation, “Please Stop Doing Explainable ML.”

Yochai Benkler at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

Profiling six areas where current deployments of artificial intelligence are having an impact on human rights

A discussion on how to think about technology, politics, and media in the post-truth moment

New policies aim to protect the privacy and security of personal data. How can trust be strengthened in the digital economy?

"We're all so aware of AI's tremendous power as a tool for manipulating customers and citizens that there are official calls to make AI dumber"

Considerations of ethics, social responsibility, and long-term impacts of software industry products

How social media bans reshape the filter bubble

An interview with Aida Joaquin Acosta summing up key points from 4 new policy papers on autonomous vehicles

How cultural differences account for our feelings about technology

Listening to the voices of the most marginalized people "is essential if we want to make space for many worlds, many ways of being, knowing, and doing, in our visions of A.I. and…

Yochai Benkler describes the limitations of the popular view of economic inequality and technology

Regulating, not banning, facial recognition technology

How should we think about the ethical implications of AI-powered products and services?

In the not-so-distant future, we will be presented with the version of the news we wish to read -- not the news that some reporter, columnist or editorial board decides we need…

Ben Green calls for the disentanglement of the concepts of unfairness and injustice within the Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency movement.

In this Wired op-ed, David Weinberger discusses the implications around…

Artificial intelligence and big data present new challenges to protecting our right to privacy both online and offline.

In this article, the authors propose suggestions to contribute to the development of guidelines which provide the strongest protections for data subjects.

How to think about A.I. through the lens of Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Lottery in Babylon”

This series published by Christian computer scientists J. Nathan Matias, Lydia Manikonda, Scott Hale, and Kenneth Arnold introduces questions for Christians about AI and its role…

As society entrusts our safety and well-being to AI systems like this one, how can we ensure that the outcomes are beneficial?

In the United States, the copyright law mechanism most likely to facilitate machine learning’s uses of protected data is the fair use doctrine. However, current fair use…

"A boy sits with his dog at the edge of a beautiful and serene lake. Under the blue sky, the far shore is visible, with a short wide beach and green woods behind it. The boy…

Jonathan Zittrain discusses the role regulators and oversight groups might play as AI becomes more and more woven into the fabric of society

Malavika Jayaram discusses the language we use to talk about Artificial Intelligence, and the impact of AI in Asia.

Barbara Grosz discusses how we are developing AI to complement, rather than displace, humanity

Kate Darling discusses how interacting with artificially intelligent human agents can have impacts on human behavioral development

danah boyd of Data & Society discusses how society could engage AI to reduce, rather than exacerbate, existing social challenges.

Chinmayi Arun discusses the challenges unchecked AI development could pose to civil liberties in Asia.

Beth Altringer discusses how to design AI systems with ethics in mind.