A collaborative event with Women in AI. We asked conference participants to tell us about their hard questions in AI, and had many fruitful conversations for future collaborations.
Category: Tammy Mackenzie, M.B.A.
Tammy Mackenzie
Biography
LinkedIn
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World AI: Women in AI
We organized with Women in AI for this 2024 World AI group photo on the main stage. Thank you to everyone who participated!
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Reimagining AI Conference Mission Statements to Promote Inclusion in the Emerging Institutional Field of AI
AI conferences play a crucial role in education by providing a platform for knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration, shaping the future of AI research and applications, and informing curricula and teaching practices. This work-in-progress, innovative practice paper presents preliminary findings from textual analysis of mission statements from select artificial intelligence (AI) conferences to uncover information gaps and opportunities that hinder inclusivity and accessibility in the emerging institutional field of AI. By examining language and focus, we identify potential barriers to entry for individuals interested in the AI domain, including educators, researchers, practitioners, and students from underrepresented groups. Our paper employs the use of the Language as Symbolic Action (LSA) framework [1] to reveal information gaps in areas such as no explicit emphasis on DEI, undefined promises of business and personal empowerment and power, and occasional elitism. These preliminary findings uncover opportunities for improvement, including the need for more inclusive language, an explicit commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, clearer communications about conference goals and expectations, and emphasis on strategies to address power imbalances and promote equal opportunities for participation. The impact of our work is bi-fold: 1) we demonstrate preliminary results from using the Language as Symbolic Action framework to text-analysis of mission statements, and 2) our preliminary findings will be valuable to the education community in understanding gaps in current AI conferences and consequently, outreach. Our work is thus of practical use for conference organizers, engineering and CS educators and other AI-related domains, researchers, and the broader AI community. Our paper highlights the need for more intentional and inclusive conference design to foster a diverse and vibrant community and community of AI professionals.
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Beyond the algorithm: Empowering ai practitioners through liberal education
As AI technology continues to transform society, there is a growing need for engineers and technologists to develop interdisciplinary skills to address complex, society-wide problems. However, there is a gap in understanding how to effectively design and deliver inter-disciplinary education programs for AI-related training. This paper addresses this gap by reporting on a successful summer school program that brought together specialists from around the world to engage in deliberations on responsible AI, as part of a Summer School in Responsible AI led by Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. Through deep dive auto-ethnographic reflections from five individuals, who were either organizers or participants, augmented with end-of-program feedback, we provide a rich description of the program’s planning, activities, and impact. Specifically, our study draws from engineering education research, bridging the gap between research and practice to answer three research questions related to the program: (1) How did the program design enable a more effective understanding of interdisciplinary problem-sets? (2) How did participants experience the interdisciplinary work of the program? (3) Did the program affect participants’ impact on interdisciplinary problem-sets after the program? Our findings highlight the benefits of interdisciplinary, holistic, and hands-on approaches to AI education and provide insights for fellow engineering education researchers on how to design effective programs in this field.
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Autonomous weapons: Palantir, Airbus engineers seek to calm ‘killer robot’ fears
Our Fellow Tammy Mackenzie was recently interviewed by FRANCE 24’s Tech24 segment to share her thoughts on AI in Autonomous Weapons Systems (AWS).
The segment looks into the ethical implications of deploying AI in military operations and discusses the critical need for regulatory frameworks that ensure these technologies are used responsibly. As the conversation around AI evolves, we must engage with these topics. Properly balancing military pragmatism and AI ethics is among the most significant global challenges today.
How do you think we can achieve a balance between innovation and responsibility?
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Preconference workshop for International AI Policy Conference at MILA.
Aula Fellows presented a pre-workshop on asking hard questions on AI. Participants practiced identifying key chaarceristics of hard questions and discussing them together. During the conference that followed, several participants stood and asked hard questions, and several presenters were very happy to receive support and feedback on their most pernicious problems. We were able to build on existing collaborations and continue with or bridge-building between all the people and the people in decision-making roles on AI in society.
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Public Consultation: AI & Copyright, Canada
This white paper is a response to Industry Canada’s public call for expert consultation on AI and Copyright. The consultation had specific questions, which are reproduced with our
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The missing voices at AI conferences
Policymaking should be a society-wide effort, including elected officials, government employees, academics, business leaders, civil society groups and individuals. In theory, each of us should be able to participate.
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Travailleurs du savoir, l’IA changera votre quotidien
Les professionnels et les travailleurs du savoir, en particulier ceux qui n’ont pas encore utilisé l’intelligence artificielle (IA), peuvent être enclins à avoir de fausses idées qui masquent l’ampleur des perturbations à venir.
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Hello, World
Welcome to our blog. Our mission is to ensure that everyone can access the conversation on AI. This blog of our collected works reports on the science, tech, and governance of AI. The purpose is to empower our readers.