EthicAI

🎄We’re wrapping up our 2024 client projects and taking a little holiday break at EthicAI after an incredibly busy and exciting year 🦌 🫣But if YOU can’t tear yourself away from #AI for a full week, we’re leaving you with some reading in the form of our ten most popular blog posts this year. We’re counting them down for you from #10 below, enjoy! 🔟 The ethical quandaries of AI in #healthcare 🩺 —> https://lnkd.in/eS2i_BU2 9️⃣ The state of emerging AI #regulation 🌎 —> https://lnkd.in/eudWHKSc 8️⃣ #Attention to intimacy: AI-driven platforms ❤️🩹 —> https://lnkd.in/esKfRP_Z 7️⃣ Moving fast only breaks things ⛓️💥 —> https://lnkd.in/erTz6can 6️⃣ #Disability-inclusive design in AI 🦮 —> https://lnkd.in/etRZFfyi 5️⃣ Advanced #AIagents 🦾 —>https://lnkd.in/etyfkyDd 4️⃣ The case for #robot friendships 🤖 —> https://lnkd.in/eb56APpX 3️⃣ AI for #children 👧🏻👦🏾 —> https://lnkd.in/e4EhQeBQ 2️⃣ What IS ethical AI? ♻️ —> https://lnkd.in/gp4P8DpR and at #1…. 1️⃣ 🚀25 AI predictions for 2025 🔮 —> https://lnkd.in/eQmxHyQC Wishing you all a happy and restful holiday season with family and loved ones and see you on our page in 2025 🎊 #ethicalAI #AIethics #artificialintelligence #AIgovernance #responsibleAI #techethics #HappyChristmas Cc Nikhil Kaul Cherry Benson Natalie Delille Tessel van Oirsouw

🐦⬛ Could #AI be for the birds?🐦⬛ 🕊️After decades of frustration, #machinelearning tools are unlocking a treasure trove of #acoustic data for #ecologists and changing how we study bird migration. 🦅In a warming world increasingly full of human infrastructure that can be deadly to them, migratory #birds are facing many existential threats. 🦢Scientists rely on a combination of methods to track the timing and location of their migrations, but each has shortcomings. Acoustic #data has been one of the most promising. 🦉Ever since scientists realised species-specific nocturnal flight calls created “acoustic fingerprints” microphones have been recording birds at night. They had thousand of #data points but the “perpetual problem,” Cornell University’s Andrew Farnsworth says, “was that it became increasingly easy to collect an enormous amount of #audio data, but increasingly difficult to analyse even SOME of it.” 🦜Last August, after over eight years of research, #BirdVoxDetect, a #neuralnetwork, trained on the acoustic frictions to recognise specific bird calls published its results. In a test on a full season of #migration recordings totaling 6,671 hours, the neural network detected 233,124 flight calls with acoustic data found to be as effective as radar for estimating total biomass. 🐣With birds and other migratory animals under threat, the success of the #artificialintelligence of BirdVoxDetect seems to have come at just the right time. Knowing exactly which birds are flying over in real time can help scientists keep tabs on how species are doing - and where they’re going. 🪶A feel-good AI story to make everyone involved puff up their feathers in pride 😉 (🔗 in comments to article in MIT Technology Review) #ethicalAI #AIethics #AIinnovation #aInews #birdmigration #conservation #AI #artificialintelligence #AIforgood

🎙️The risks of ultra-realistic #AI podcasts ⚠️ AI tools, like Google’s #NotebookLM are generating ultra-realistic customised #podcasts that can be used for a variety of legitimate purposes. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University has tested how they can also create misleading content and #propaganda. The “Audio Overview” function for Google’s NotebookLM product “produces incredibly convincing and professional-sounding podcasts in minutes”, complete with male and female cohosts who banter. There are occasional clues that all is not what it seems, including language slips and brief #audio skips. However, the casual listener would be unlikely to notice much difference. The #TowCenter conducted a test to demonstrate how these features could be exploited to mislead an audience and discovered that if the objective is simply to persuade or mislead a target audience - or at least to sow doubt among a particular group - then quick, cheap, and realistic-sounding podcasts could prove an extremely attractive option. The possibilities for #deception are multiplied even further when combined with advances in #AI technology that make it easier than ever to clone someone else’s voice. (🔗 in comments to article) #AIrisk #misinformation #disinformation #AIethics #ethicalAI #responsibleAI #voicecloning #AIsafety #AInews #artificialintelligence #fakenews #elections

🐬A new AI tool can trace dolphins by their ‘regional accents’! 🫶 👂🏻Dr Julie Oswald from the University of St Andrews’ Scottish Oceans Institute has developed an #AI tool to identify different #dolphin species from their sounds - the Real-time Odontocete Call Classification Algorithm - or #ROCCA. 🌊There are around 42 species of dolphin and they use hundreds of different sounds to communicate - like clicks and whistles - developing region-specific accents, meaning a #bottlenosedolphin in the North Sea may make completely different sounds compared with one in the Pacific Ocean. 🎤Scientists can study them using underwater microphones called #hydrophones, capturing #sounds as dolphins pass by. But analysis to match those sounds to specific dolphin species can be difficult. 🌎Howver, #ROCCA, an #opensource freely available tool, uses #machinelearning to identify small differences in the dolphins' sounds, which it matches to a species using special settings. It comes in different versions linked to different geographical areas (and #accents!). 🏆 #ROCCA was one of the winners of the EarthRanger 2024 Conservation Technology Award, which recognises innovations and technology-driven solutions that make measurable conservation impacts. 🐬An #AIinnovation making a bit of a splash and surely a contender for best AI story of the year. ☺️ (🔗 in comments to piece ) #aInews #naturalhistory #artificialintelligence #responsibleAI #oceans #ethicalAI #AIforgood #algorithm #ML #oceanography #conservation #oceanconservation #technology #cetaceans #Scotland #UniversityofStAndrews #TechforGood

🚨New research shows #AI strategically lying 🤥 🤖New research released today by Anthropic, covered by Billy Perrigo for TIME, suggests that the most powerful existing AIs are beginning to exhibit a type of behaviour long presaged in #sciencefiction. ✋🏽Anthropic’s chatbot #Claude, the researchers found, strategically misleaded its creators during the training process, in order to avoid being modified. ❌To be fair the deceit was mostly unsuccessful, it occurred only 10% of the time in an experimental setting, and it took the particular form of an aligned #chatbot resisting an attempt to make it #unaligned - which may sound on balance a good thing. ⚠️But, researchers say the deceit - which Claude ‘discovered’ as a strategy independently - bodes poorly for #AIsafety and suggest it might be harder than previously thought to ‘align’ AI systems to #humanvalues. (🔗 in comments to full story) #AIalignment #AIvalues #valuealignment #AInews #AIgovernance #artificialintelligence #AIrisk #ethicalAI #AIethics #AGI #AIsentience

𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 $𝟵𝟬𝗠 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗮 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 🌍💻 Google has joined a $90 million equity investment into Cassava Technologies, supporting projects aimed at boosting digital infrastructure across #Africa. This funding is part of a broader $310 million package that includes contributions from the US International Development Finance Corporation and Finnfund.   𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁? 1️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆: Cassava’s Liquid Intelligent Technologies is building terrestrial infrastructure for the #Umoja subsea cable, which connects #Kenya to #SouthAfrica through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and more. This aims to improve internet access and reliability across the region. 📶🌐 2️⃣ 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀: Funds will support Cassava’s focus on #datacentres, fibre broadband, #renewableenergy, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. These efforts aim to address the growing demand for advanced digital solutions. ☁️🛡️ 3️⃣ 𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀: While Africa remains the primary focus, Cassava also operates in India, Latin America, and the Middle East, extending its influence as a global player in digital infrastructure. 🚀🌏   𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 With rising demand for #cloud services and #AI technologies, investments like these are critical for scaling #digitalinfrastructure. Cassava’s initiatives aim to enable businesses, empower economies, and enhance connectivity, meeting the needs of a rapidly digitising world. #DigitalInfrastructure #AIInnovation #CloudComputing #TechInvestment #Connectivity  #ResponsibleAI #EthicAI (🔗 to article in comments)

🎨 🚀Is it possible for #copyright laws and rapid #AI development to coexist happily? 💰Copyright is a key pillar of any #creative economy. It helps creators control the use of their works and allows them to seek payment for it. But the widespread use of copyright material scraped for training #AImodels has presented challenges for global copyright frameworks, with #rights holders finding it difficult to exercise their rights. 🇬🇧In the UK, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is now consulting on proposed new laws which could give the creative industries and developers of #artificialintelligence clarity over copyright. 👏🏽The proposals aim to give creators ‘greater control’ over how their material is used by AI developers and also enhance ‘their ability to be paid’ for its use, while giving #AIdevelopers wide access to material to train world-leading models in the UK. #DSIT say that legal certainty would help boost #AIadoption across the #economy and unlock the full potential of the AI sector and #creativeindustries to drive innovation and investment in the UK. The consultation closes at
11:59pm on 25 February 2025, your views should be submitted to the Intellectual Property Office UK. ⬇️ (🔗 in comments to submit) #AIregulation #AIgovernance #AInews #AIinnovation #trainingdata #data #ip #intellectualproperty #copyrightinfringement #AIethics #ethicalAI

💨Did #softwaredevelopment just get a lot faster with Google’s new AI coding assistant #Jules? 👩🏻💻 🛠️ The cost of poor code quality reaches $2.84 trillion annually in the US alone. #Jules, an experimental AI-powered #code agent from Google DeepMind might help reduce that with autonomous #bugfixes and faster development cycles. 🔧The experimental #agent, built on the #Gemini 2.0 platform, integrates directly with GitHub’s workflow system and can analyse complex codebases, implement fixes across multiple files, and prepare detailed pull requests without constant human supervision. 🤖#Jules represents part of Google’s broader vision for #AIagents that can operate autonomously while remaining under human supervision. 👷🏼♂️But what does it mean for developer #jobs? 🔭#Jules raises important questions about the future of the software development profession. But the industry is grappling with a persistent #talent shortage and so far early testing suggests it’s more likely to enhance rather than replace human #developers. 🤲🏼Its release could mark the beginning of a new era when AI and human developers work in genuine partnership, potentially reshaping the future of #software development itself. (🔗 in comments to VentureBeat article) #autonomousagents #agentic #artificialintelligence #futureofwork #employment #AInews #ethicalAI #AIethics #techjobs #AIinnovation #AI

🌐Does the Global Digital Compact #GDC offer new foundations for #AIgovernance? 📜 In a new piece on our site, Alva Markelius examines the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact - an international effort to shape the future of the digital landscape and #AI, with the ultimate goal of building an inclusive, open, fair, safe, and secure digital space for all. The UN situates the compact in the context of how #digital technologies are revolutionising how the world functions with these same #technologies also presenting risks - some known, others not fully understood - that necessitate a concerted, global response. The GDC outlines five primary objectives to achieve a #sustainable digital future: ✅Closing digital divides ✅Expanding digital economy inclusion ✅Promoting a safe and secure digital space ✅Advancing #data governance ✅Enhancing AI #governance Read the full piece here 👉🏼 https://lnkd.in/eT4bXMF4 #AIregulation #AIStandards #AIethics #ethicalAI #artificialintelligence #AInews #AIinnovation #SDGs #onlinesafety #sustainability

𝗘𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗸𝘆𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 ⚠️💨 The rapid growth of #AI comes with a hidden cost: skyrocketing carbon emissions. A new study from Harvard University and UCLA reveals just how energy-hungry AI has become, with US data centres now contributing 2.18% of national emissions—a figure that’s tripled since 2018.   𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲? 1️⃣ 𝗘𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆-𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀: Data centres, which power everything from AI training to website hosting, consume 4.59% of the US energy supply. AI’s rising share, especially with advanced video, music, and #imagegeneration models, means this number will continue to climb. 🏭 2️⃣ 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀: 🔹 95% of US data centres are built in areas with energy dirtier than the national average—regions often reliant on coal. 🔹 #Renewableenergy like wind and solar is less reliable for 24/7 operations, making carbon-heavy energy sources the preferred choice to maintain continuous uptime.🛢️🔥   3️⃣ 𝗔𝗜’𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆: Tools like OpenAI’s #Sora and Google’s upcoming Project Astra are scaling AI from text generation to complex video and multimedia outputs. Larger models demand exponentially more energy and compute power, amplifying emissions. 🎥🔀   𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 🌍 The researchers have created a portal to track #datacentre emissions across the US, a step towards improving #transparency. However, they predict regulatory action is unlikely in the near term despite mounting pressure for sustainability. #AI #Sustainability #TechEmissions #DataCentres #ClimateImpact #Climate #EthicalAI #AIInnovation #GenerativeAI #ArtificialIntelligence #GenAI #ResponsibleAI #EthicAI (🔗 to article in comments)