BIDS Machine Learning and Science Forum
Date: Monday, April 4, 2022
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time
The Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR)
Speaker: Timnit Gebru, Founder and Executive Director, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)
Abstract: The Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) was launched in December 2021 by Timnit Gebru as a space for independent, community-rooted AI research, free from Big Tech’s pervasive influence. DAIR states that the harms embedded in AI technology are preventable and that when its production and deployment include diverse perspectives and deliberate processes, it can be put to work for people, rather than against them. With DAIR, Gebru aims to create an environment that is independent from the structures and systems that incentivize profit over ethics and individual well-being. In this talk, Gebru will discuss why she founded DAIR and what she hopes this interdisciplinary, community-based, global network of AI researchers can accomplish.
The BIDS Machine Learning and Science Forum meets biweekly to discuss current applications across a wide variety of research domains in the physical sciences and beyond. Hosted by BIDS Affiliates Uroš Seljak (professor of Physics at UC Berkeley) and Ben Nachman (physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), these active sessions bring together domain scientists, statisticians, and computer scientists who are either developing state-of-the-art methods or are interested in applying these methods in their research. To receive email notifications about upcoming meetings, or to request more information, please contact the organizers at berkeleymlforum@gmail.com. All interested members of the UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab communities are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Speaker(s)
Timnit Gebru
Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). Prior to that she was fired by Google in December 2020 for raising issues of discrimination in the workplace, where she was serving as co-lead of the Ethical AI research team. She received her PhD from Stanford University, and did a postdoc at Microsoft Research, New York City in the FATE (Fairness Accountability Transparency and Ethics in AI) group, where she studied algorithmic bias and the ethical implications underlying projects aiming to gain insights from data. Timnit also co-founded Black in AI, a nonprofit that works to increase the presence, inclusion, visibility and health of Black people in the field of AI, and is on the board of AddisCoder, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching algorithms and computer programming to Ethiopian highschool students, free of charge.