$10M Grant from NSF Establishes Center for Trustworthy Machine Learning

A team of U.S. computer scientists is receiving a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to make machine learning more secure. The grant establishes the Center for Trustworthy Machine Learning at a consortium of seven universities, including the University of California San Diego. Researchers will work together toward two goals: understanding the risks inherent to machine learning; and developing the tools, metrics, and methods to manage and mitigate these risks. The science and arsenal of defensive techniques emerging within the center will provide the basis for building more trustworthy and secure systems in the future, as well as fostering a long-term research community within this essential domain of technology, researchers say. "This research is important because machine learning is becoming more pervasive in our daily lives, powering technologies we interact with, including services like e-commerce and Internet searches, as well as devices such as Internet-connected smart speakers," says Kamalika Chaudhuri, a computer science professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering, who will be leading the UC San Diego portion of the research.