AI can learn from data without ever having access to it

In recent months, security researchers have shown that machine learning algorithms can be reverse-engineered and made to expose user data, like personal photos or health data. So how can we protect that information? New research from OpenAI and Google shows a way to build AI that never sees personal data, but is able to function as if it had. Ian Goodfellow, a researcher at OpenAI, compares the system to medical school. "The doctors who teach in medical school have learned everything they know from decades of experience working with specific individual people, and as a side effect they know a lot of private medical histories," Goodfellow says.