Demystify the technology that creates AI

Beware of relying uncritically on big data computer systems, warns a St. Mary's University professor undertaking a five-year research project dubbed Where Science Meets Fiction: Social Robots and the Ethical Imagination. "There are real dangers now with big data," said Dr. Teresa Heffernan, the St. Mary's University professor undertaking the research project. "Algorithms have the same biases as humans." With her research project, the professor is hoping to demystify the technology that creates artificial intelligence and bring together experts from all walks of life to begin a dialogue about how humans and these machines should interact -- what to do and what not to do. "I want to shift the conversation that has been shaped by Silicon Valley . . . to make it more open and question the rhetoric, to demystify the technology and expose how the technology works rather than be dominated by it," said Heffernan.