AI Ethics Debate at Chicago Conference, Precursor to CASMI’s Next Workshop

The public debate around artificial intelligence (AI) came to Chicago on June 12-15, when 828 scholars and practitioners from 35 countries participated in the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT) at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.

Several researchers with Northwestern's Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence (CASMI) attended the conference to discuss the ethics and policy surrounding AI and technology.

“It’s exciting to see the evolution of FAccT, which began as academics genuinely concerned about accountability and fairness with regard to technology and has grown into a concrete examination of where technologies are causing harm and how to make them safe,” said Kristian Hammond, Bill and Cathy Osborn professor of computer science and director of CASMI. “As a group, FAccT has become much more focused on how to operationalize safety and protect the world from harm.”

The conference’s mission to bring together researchers interested in fairness, accountability, and transparency in sociotechnical systems is in line with CASMI’s mission to operationalize machine intelligence that is safe, equitable, and beneficial. ACM FAccT’s focus also aligns with CASMI’s next workshop, “Sociotechnical Approaches to Measurement and Validation for Safety in AI.”

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