Top Tech

In a paper accepted to the 2020 NeurIPS conference, Google and Stanford researchers explore the bias exhibited by certain kinds of computer vision algorithms — convolutional neural networks (CNNs) — trained on the open source ImageNet dataset. Unlike humans, ImageNet-trained CNNs tend to classify images by texture rather than by shape. Their work indicates that CNNs’ bias toward textures may…

Facebook says it’s using AI to prioritize potentially problematic posts for human moderators to review as it works to more quickly remove content that violates its community guidelines. The social media giant previously leveraged machine learning models to proactively take down low-priority content and left high-priority content reported by users to human reviewers. But Facebook claims it now…

The need to pursue racial justice is more urgent than ever, especially in the technology industry. The far-reaching scope and power of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) means that any gender and racial bias at the source is multiplied to the nth power in businesses and out in the world. The impact those technology biases have on society as a whole can’t be…

European electric scooter startup Voi is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to enable its vehicles to detect pedestrians and sidewalks, a move designed to ingratiate itself to municipalities worried about chaotic micromobility schemes. Escooter (and ebike) sales have surged throughout 2020 as travelers sought alternatives to crowded public transport, but this proliferation serves to stoke…