Microsoft Researchers Say NLP Bias Studies Must Consider Role of Social Hierarchies Like Racism

As the recently released GPT-3 and several recent studies demonstrate, racial bias, as well as bias based on gender, occupation, and religion, can be found in popular NLP language models. But a team of AI researchers wants the NLP bias research community to more closely examine and explore relationships between language, power, and social hierarchies like racism in their work. That’s…

Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting Protections For Social Media Platforms

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday designed to limit the legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for the content users post on their platforms. Axios reports: “Currently, social media giants like Twitter received unprecedented viability shield based on the theory that they are a neutral platform, which they are not,” Trump said in the Oval Office….

Trump To Order Review of Law Protecting Social Media Firms After Twitter Spat

President Trump will sign an executive order later today that mandates a review of a law that shields companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook from being held liable for the content appearing on their platforms after fact checks for the first time were added to two of his tweets. From a news report: The executive order Trump is expected to sign…

Why these astronomers now doubt there’s a Planet Nine

In the search for the hypothetical 9th planet in our solar system, these scientists may have uncovered another explanation for the patterns in the orbits of Kuiper Belt objects. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/astronomer-doubt-planet-nine-9…

US Senator Wants To Know Which Federal Authorities Are Using Clearview AI To Track the Coronavirus

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that claims to have scraped over 3 billion photos from social media to power its face-matching tool, is now facing questions from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey about recent claims that it’s developing a digital contact tracing tool for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus….

AI Researchers Propose ‘Bias Bounties’ To Put Ethics Principles Into Practice

Researchers from Google Brain, Intel, OpenAI, and top research labs in the U.S. and Europe joined forces this week to release what the group calls a toolbox for turning AI ethics principles into practice. From a report: The kit for organizations creating AI models includes the idea of paying developers for finding bias in AI, akin to the bug bounties offered…

Court Finds Algorithm Bias Studies Don’t Violate US Anti-Hacking Law

“A federal court in D.C. has ruled in a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr that studies aimed at detecting discrimination in online algorithms don’t violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” reports Engadget:
The government argued that the Act made it illegal to violate a site’s terms of service through some investigative methods (such as submitting false info for research), but…

Will we soon see potentially habitable exoplanets more clearly?

Because stars are so much brighter than their planets, we’ve barely begun to glimpse distant exoplanets, or planets orbiting distant stars. Now a new technology promises to provide better imaging of these potentially habitable exoworlds. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanets-direct-imaging-potential-habitability…

More essential coronavirus links: March 17-23

A roundup of information from physicians, scientists and journalists. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/more-essential-coronavirus-links-march-17-23…

How to Increase Female Participation in STEM (Gender Gap)

While you’ve likely heard the reasons why women leave STEM fields, Dr. Diana Bilimoria researches why they stay along with other ways to develop and advance the careers of women in STEM. Recognized internationally for her leadership and research, Dr. Diana Bilimoria is a Key Bank Professor and Chair of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead […]
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