The Challenge of Training Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Privacy OpenMind

These are troubled times for artificial intelligence developers: never has there been such potential in the field of machine learning, which relies on users' personal information for training--however, data regulation and public perception of digital privacy have never been sterner, either. The 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal was a watershed moment: personal data from 87 million Facebook users were covertly used for political campaigning. This event, and the frequent news of security breaches in social networks, in operating systems and in cloud servers have eroded public trust. Earlier this year, Google admitted that its employees listen to recordings of conversations held between clients and the company's smart speaker. Technologists are on a quest for privacy-protecting artificial intelligence, which has led to the proposal of new techniques like federated learning.