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Profs and Pints DC presents: “Artificial Intelligence and You,” a look at AI’s huge unseen impact on society and your daily life, with Lauren Maffeo, adjunct lecturer in Interaction Design at George Washington University, a founding editor of the journal AI and Ethics, and author of Designing Data Governance from the Ground Up.
The release of various iterations of ChatGPT, an artificial-intelligence chatbot with extraordinary powers to learn and generate images and ideas, has given rise to the perception that we’re entering an “AI Era” full of promise and peril. While the fans of ChatGPT praise it for its ease of use and accuracy, many scientists and government officials are sounding alarms of potential consequences evoking dystopian science-fiction films. A long list of computer scientists and tech industry officials have signed a letter arguing that AI labs are “locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control,” with “profound risks to society and humanity.”
The debate over ChatGPT and the development of sentient machines distracts attention from a far more immediate concern: Other forms of artificial intelligence already are being used in countless ways that impact all aspects of our lives—sometimes for the worse.
Banks use algorithms to determine eligibility for home loans and judges use them in deciding prison sentences, even though such algorithms often have built racial bias built into them. Police use facial recognition to make arrests, some of which turn out to be false. The District of Columbia’s government uses 29 different algorithms to make decisions that impact residents, often without disclosing how these algorithms work. At its core, Artificial Intelligence isn’t an autonomous machine. It’s the collection and use of data, some of which is incorrect or never should have been gathered at all.
Join Professor Lauren Maffeo, a scholar of Artificial Intelligence and its implications, for a discussion of the hidden impact of AI on our lives. She’ll explain how we got here, how AI can be biased and what types of bias to watch for, and steps we can all take to be informed citizens who ensure AI is used transparently and for worthy purposes. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: Facial recognition software is among the forms of Artificial Intelligence already impacting our lives. (Illustration from Pixabay.)
