February 24th, 2021
Simpsons / 20th Century Fox
AI and ML systems have advanced in both sophistication and capability at a staggering rate in recent years. They can now model protein structures based only on the molecule’s amino-acid sequence, create poetry and text on par with human writers — even spot specific individuals in a crowd (assuming their complexion is sufficiently light). But for as impressive as these feats of computational prowess are, the field continues to struggle with a number of fundamental moral and ethical issues. A facial recognition system designed to identify terrorists can just as easily be leveraged to monitor peaceful protesters or suppress ethnic minorities, depending on how it is deployed.