The need for ethics, standards and policies for the ever-increasing use of artificial intelligence and other emerging tech is the impetus behind a new research center at the University of Michigan. The Center for Ethics, Society and Computing (or ESC -- "Escape" -- for short) is "dedicated to intervening when digital media and computing technologies reproduce inequality, exclusion, corruption, deception, racism, or sexism," according to its mission statement. "[AI] is a topic that used to be on the fringes but more recently has gotten broader attention as we have experienced many unintended consequences of technology," said center Associate Director Silvia Lindtner, assistant professor of information and art and design, in a statement. For instance, the increasing use of AI and data-based algorithms can lead to gender and racial stereotyping. Beyond AI and data usage, the interdisciplinary center will also focus on issues of privacy, augmented and virtual reality, open data and identity.

Carnegie Mellon University plans to announce on Wednesday that it will create a research center that focuses on the ethics of artificial intelligence. The ethics center, called the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies, is being established at a time of growing international concern about the impact of A.I. technologies. That has already led to an array of academic, governmental and private efforts to explore a technology that until recently was largely the stuff of science fiction. In the last decade, faster computer chips, cheap sensors and large collections of data have helped researchers improve on computerized tasks like machine vision and speech recognition, as well as robotics. Earlier this year, the White House held a series of workshops around the country to discuss the impact of A.I., and in October the Obama administration released a report on its possible consequences.