Organisations studying AI and ethics/society
From The Artificial Intelligence and Society discussion group
Academic institutes:
- Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute - in particular the AI safety theme. Director: Nick Bostrom
- Cambridge's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk - in particular the AI risk area. Director: Huw Price
- Cambridge (MA)'s Future of Life Institute - in particular the AI focus. Founders include Jaan Tallinn and Max Tegmark
- Oxford's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Director: Huw Price
- Berkeley's Centre for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence. Led by Stuart Russell
- Berkeley's Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Founder: Eliezer Yudkowsky
Academic/industry organisations:
- The AI100 initiative. 'A 100-year effort to study and anticipate how the effects of artificial intelligence will ripple through every aspect of how people work, live and play.'
- OpenAI. A non-profit AI research company. Founded by Elon Musk
Industry organisations:
- The Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society. An industry organisation set up jointly by Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and IBM. (Apple is still in talks to join.)
- The IEEE released Version 1 of Ethically Aligned Design: A vision for prioritising human wellbeing with AI and Autonomous Systems (Dec 2016). The IEEE is a global professional organisation for IT professionals, also a leader in IT standards develoment. The main proposal is that every technologist should be 'educated, trained, and empowered to prioritize ethical considerations in the design and development of autonomous and intelligent systems'.
Political/legal working parties:
- The US National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence organised several workshops in 2016, and in October 2016 released a report: Preparing for the future of AI.
- The EU Parliament's committee on legal affairs released a draft report containing recommendations to the Commission for civil Law Rules on Robotics. It's a draft piece of EU legislation. The wide-ranging proposals include the creation of a European agency for robotics and AI, consideration of a universal basic income in member states, and suggestions about how machine liability should be defined.
- A report by the International Bar Association Global Employment Institute: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace (April 2017). Among the topics covered are ideas about 'human quotas' for specified sectors of industry, 'made by humans' labels on goods, taxation for the use of AI systems, and a universal basic income.
Nonprofit organisations / Charities / Thinktanks:
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an ongoing project aiming to measure the progress of AI research.
- NESTA (a UK charity dedicated to 'increasing the UK's innovation capacity') has various projects, including a report on machine learning (2015), and a proposal for a Machine Intelligence Commission for the UK (February 2016)
Australia / New Zealand organisations:
- CEDA (the Committee for Economic Development of Australia) released a report, Australia's future workforce? (June 2015), predicting that nearly 40% of existing jobs will disappear because of technological advancements.
- CSIRO (Australia's government agency for scientific research) has a report on Tomorrow's Digitally Enabled Workforce (January 2016) that is less commital about numbers.
- The Artificial Intelligence Forum of New Zealand is being established in partnership with the New Zealand Technology Industry Association. It will lead a programme of work from 2017 onwards 'aiming to raise the level of awareness and capabilities of Artificial Intelligence in New Zealand'.
Career advice:
- 80,000 hours (an organisation offering advice about careers with positive social impact) have released a problem profile on AI, that includes advice about careers for existing AI researchers, and a career profile for people who are interested in getting into AI.
Pressure groups / NGOs:
