Policing AI: Is it a task for government, industry, consumers or all of the above?

It may not yet be clear how societies will guard against the potential downside of artificial intelligence -- including algorithmic bias, invasions of privacy and unjustified profiling -- but it's already abundantly clear that safeguards are needed. That's the bottom line from Wednesday night's panel discussion on AI bias, presented in Seattle by EqualAI and LivePerson. Both of the panel's presenters have a stake in figuring out how to address AI's downsides: LivePerson is interested in how chatbots and other AI-enabled tools can smooth interactions between companies and the customers they serve, while EqualAI is an initiative supported by the likes of Arianna Huffington, Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and LivePerson CEO Robert Locascio to reduce AI bias. "Companies are creating AI to change the world," said EqualAI executive director Miriam Vogel, who focused on equal-pay issues and bias training for law enforcement during her time at the Obama White House and the Justice Department. "They're trying to do good, they're trying to reach people who have not been reached, start conversations that haven't happened otherwise -- knowing that [implicit bias] is not necessarily coming from a malicious act. It's coming from human actions," she said.