We are pleased to share that Data & Society is one of nine organizations receiving support from the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund.
The eight other recipients announced today are the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, MIT Media Lab, Digital Asia Hub (Hong Kong), ITS Rio (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), AI Now (New York), Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (Cambridge, United Kingdom), Access Now (Brussels, Belgium), and FAT ML (Global).
Together, these nine organizations aim to bolster the voice of civil society in shaping the development of artificial intelligence in the public interest. The funding seeks to lend momentum to existing initiatives and spark new efforts internationally.
With this support, Data & Society will conduct a series of ethnographically-informed studies of intelligent systems in which human labor plays an integral part, and will explore how and why the constitutive human elements of artificial intelligence are often obscured or rendered invisible. The research will produce empirical work examining these dynamics in order to facilitate the creation of effective regulation and ethical design considerations across domains.
About the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund
The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund aims to support work around the world that advances the development of ethical artificial intelligence in the public interest, with an emphasis on applied research and education. The fund was launched in January 2017, with an initial investment of $27 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Omidyar Network, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, the Hewlett Foundation, and Jim Pallotta. The activities supported through the fund aim to address the global challenges of artificial intelligence from a multidisciplinary perspective—grounded in data, code, and academic analysis. The fund will advance the public understanding of artificial intelligence and support the creation of networks that span disciplines and topics related to artificial intelligence. The Miami Foundation is serving as fiscal sponsor for the fund.
For more information, please contact Anusha Alikhan, Communications Director, Knight Foundation, media at knightfoundation.org. For the full press release, click here.