Exactly a year ago, Google fired its top ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru . Now, Gebru has set up an independent AI research institute to counter Big Tech’s influence on research, development and deployment of AI.
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Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) has received funding from Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Kapor Center, and Open Society Foundation.
“Timnit Gebru's launch and leadership of DAIR will advance the field of public interest technology and ensure the movement toward ethical AI not only considers but prioritizes the voices of impacted communities around the globe,” Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation said in a statement.
Raesetje Sefala is DAIR’s first research fellow whose recent study focuses on the evolution of spatial apartheid in South Africa. She has won the "Most Rigorous Researcher" IndabaX South Africa roadshow award for this work.
“AI needs to be brought back down to earth. It has been elevated to a superhuman level that leads us to believe it is both inevitable and beyond our control,” Gebru said in the announcement.
“When AI research, development and deployment is rooted in people and communities from the start, we can get in front of these harms and create a future that values equity and humanity.”
