State of the Net 2018

Recent reports on Artificial Intelligence from the World Economic Forum and the AI Now Institute have reiterated a need for policymaker engagement and thoughtful examination of the impact of AI on society. As algorithmic decision making continues to grow more central to our lives, pervading fields such as policing, hiring, and entertainment, it has brought us into previously uncharted policy territory. These algorithms, however, are treated as "black boxes", where decisions are made through mathematical heuristics rather than linear logic. With the discovery of biases inherent to the machine learning process, how can companies, consumers, and government ensure that these technologies are used for good? Join us as we discuss the impact of these algorithms, the push for algorithmic fairness, and the attempt to build transparent algorithms that can explain their reasoning.