Facial recognition company Clearview AI, popular for gathering images from the internet to create a global facial recognition database, has been fined more than £7.5 million by the UK’s privacy watchdog. The fine comes just months after a trio of senators called on federal agencies to stop using facial recognition technology built by Clearview AI. In letters signed by Sens. Edward Markey and Jeffrey Merkley, as well as House Reps Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Presley, the technology was said to pose “unique threats” to Black communities, other communities of color,
Codecademy, the leading online learning platform for technical skills, is partnering with The Black and Brilliant Advocacy Network to launch an Applied Artificial Intelligence accelerator and mentorship program in Africa. After launching their first accelerator together in 2021, the organizations are teaming up again to bring the program to Africa and empower a new generation of tech talent in the region. Combining upskilling and mentorship, the Codecademy and Black and Brilliant program will focus on both the hard and soft skills needed to build successful careers in AI. Over the course of 10 weeks, participants
There are many ways to celebrate Black History Month, and while it’s important to look back at our history from Martin Luther King to those that paved the way in regards to racial justice – it’s equally important to celebrate Black joy and Black excellence in other areas too. One area where the community is really making moves in tech. It’s no secret that diversity is a challenge in the tech world, with the industry lagging behind the rest of the economy on almost every diversity metric, but it’s important
New York City is making a bold move by introducing a new law to combat race and gender bias in hiring processes when businesses use artificial intelligence tools to screen out job candidates. Under the new law – employers in the city will be banned from using automated employment decision tools to screen job candidates unless the technology has been subject to a “bias audit” conducted a year before using the tool. The new act passed the measure on November 10 and it takes effect on January 2, 2023. A PricewaterhouseCoopers 2017 study found
Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Opal Tometi has urged the tech sector to take robust action against perpetuating racism in systems such as facial recognition. “A lot of the algorithms, a lot of the data is racist,” U.S. activist Tometi, who co-founded BLM in 2013, told Reuters on the sidelines of Lisbon’s Web Summit. “We need tech to truly understand every way it (racism) shows up in the technologies they are developing,” she said. Her comments come just a day after Facebook announced it was shutting down its facial recognition
Facebook is planning to shut down its face-recognition system and delete faceprints of more than 1 billion people. At the present moment – more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have opted to have their faces recognized by the social network’s system. That’s about 640 million people. But according to AP – it recently began scaling back its use of facial recognition after introducing it more than a decade ago. The move comes years after organizations and people of color complained about how problematic AI and facial recognition
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence robots and is reportedly launching touch sensitivity with two new sensors it has created. They include a high-resolution robot fingertip sensor called DIGIT and a thin and replaceable robotic “skin,” known as ReSkin. DIGIT was first released in 2020 as an open-source design; it uses a tiny camera pointed at the pads to produce a detailed image of the touched item. While Reskin can help AI robots to discern information such as an object’s texture, weight, temperature, and state. According
Create Lab Ventures has teamed up with Trill or Not Trill to launch the world’s first artificial intelligence Afro-Latina, A. I robot, who made her debut at school systems worldwide on Monday. C.L.Ai.R.A was first introduced through Trill or Not Trill; a Black founded institution to provide innovative strategies and solutions that speak “to the culture.” Founders Jeff Dess and Lenny Williams joined forces with a social venture – Creat Lab Ventures – to continue their mission of providing underserved communities with the resources and skills needed to thrive in the media and
