"Easy to say, difficult to achieve"
I purchased the Audible version of Dr. Joy Buolamwini’s new book—Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines. She narrates the book herself.
Here’s a map of the meandering journey this book and book review launched me on today… (Because this post is link-heavy, I recommend reading on your desktop so you can open links in new windows while you travel along with me.)
In the process of reading MIT Technology Review’s post about the book, I went to the Algorithmic Justice League founded by Joy and discovered Facial Recognition Technologies: A Primer written by Joy Buolamwini, Vicente Ordóñez, Jamie Morgenstern, and Erik Learned-Miller in 2020.
The authors write in the intro:
This primer is meant to accompany our white paper, Facial Recognition Technologies in the Wild: A Call for a Federal Office, as a supporting document. It presents background on Facial Recognition Technologies (FRTs) and provides important context for material in the main document of the white paper.
The primer is written for a non-technical audience to increase understanding of the terminology, applications, and difficulties of evaluating this complex set of technologies. In Section 1, we provide basic definitions of common terms like face detection and face verification. Such definitions are needed to clarify the precise meaning of subsequent discussions. In Section 2, we present some common and lesser known uses of FRTs. Section 3 introduces some of the fundamental technical concepts used in the process of recognizing a face, from the capture of the face by a camera, to the digital representation of faces in a computer, and finally to the evaluation of results and the categorization of errors. Section 4 highlights challenges with characterizing and measuring the accuracy of FRTs. This primer is a basic tutorial and does not provide guidance on if, how, or when specific FRTs should be used.
The AJL library has lots of articles including one titled Can you refuse a TSA face scan at the airport?
Quick Answer: Yes, you can refuse TSA face scans at the airport. Although they don’t advertise it, TSA face scans are voluntary, and you can ask for manual verification instead.
My favorite JB quote from the MIT Technology Review interview by writer Melissa Heikkilä published October 29:
“Don’t jump in the deep end not knowing that it’s deep.”
Joy Buolamwini
Next stop on the journey was Why AI Matters with Deb Raji on Khan Academy. Deb Raji is a colleague of Buolamwini at the Algorithmic Justice League. Here is an excerpt from the Khan Academy description:
Artificial intelligence impacts your life and the lives of people all over the world. In this video, Deb Raji—a current Mozilla Foundation fellow and researcher with the Algorithmic Justice League—explains why everyone needs to know the basics of AI, not just computer scientists and programmers… "We desperately need diverse perspectives in this field to shape a future for AI that is inclusive, that is impactful in the right ways, and attentive to the concerns of those that are the most vulnerable in society."
Interested in diving down into AI ethics with your students or teens?
As part of a course on AI and Machine Learning, Code.org has put together a great resource on AI Ethics Research Areas with video and article links for the topics Computer Vision and Sensors; Social Media, Shopping, and Entertainment; Human-Robot Interaction; Employment, Economy, and Finance; Healthcare, Human Life, and Well-being; and Environment, Nature Resources, and Wildlife.
Next up from the MIT Technology Review’s The Algorithm newsletter 10.30.23 by Melissa Heikkilä…I found myself on an exploration of progress on AI data provenance….
Where does AI data come from?
AI systems are notoriously not transparent. In an attempt to tackle this problem, MIT, Cohere for AI, and 11 other institutions have audited and traced nearly 2,000 of the most widely used fine-tuning data sets, which form the backbone of many published breakthroughs in natural-language processing. The end product is nerdy but cool. (The Data Provenance Initiative)
This led to C2PA.org and the C2PA Standard that is intended to bind provenance to media throughout it’s journey—for photos, audio, video. Watch the C2PA.org video here for a glimpse of transparency solutions to the rapid proliferation of synthetic and manipulated media.
To see what I mean, here’s a reality check on what’s possible…
And take a peek behind the curtain for how this was made.
Keywords: Digital Content Authenticity (DCA)
“To move forward is to concoct new patterns of thought, which in turn dictate the design of the models and experiments. Easy to say, difficult to achieve.”
—Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life
Last on the journey, the Half Earth Day 2023 recap with videos of the sessions landed in my inbox. I’m so grateful the E.O. Wilson Foundation shared some of the conference panels. I’ve attended Half Earth Day in person before and was sad to miss this one. This is one of my favorite organizations, founded by naturalist E.O. Wilson.
Thanks for traveling with me. Be well.