The following blog post is from Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Vice Chair Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado Boulder) and CCC Executive Council member Suresh Venkatasubramanian (University of Utah). Algorithmic bias can be insidious, making it all but impossible to pinpoint factors that contribute to discrimination. This is particularly concerning in the context of high-stakes decisions. The new Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines around the use of algorithms to aid in housing decisions are an example of this. This HUD proposal acknowledges the existence of algorithmic bias but would shift much of the burden of proof to demonstrate discriminatory behavior back onto the plaintiffs, using standards for algorithmic […]

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) just announced their 2019 ACM Fellows. The ACM Fellows award is ACM’s most prestigious member grade, which “comprise an elite group that represents less than 1% of the Association’s global membership.” The 2019 list honors 58 members of ACM for their contributions to computing. Among the 2019 Fellows is Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member Maria Gini (University of Minnesota), recognized for her “for contributions to robotics and multi-agent systems and a lifelong commitment to diversity in computing.” Maria joined the CCC this year and is a member of the Health and Computing Task Force. Other 2019 Fellows include past CCC Council members Elizabeth […]

Hackers can use lasers to silently “speak” to any computer that receives voice commands, these include smartphones, Amazon Echo speakers, Google Homes, and Facebook’s Portal video chat devices. Former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Kevin Fu, from the University of Michigan, and his collaborator Takeshi Sugawara, from the University of Tokyo, discovered that it is possible to make microphones respond to light as if it were sound.  This means that anything that acts on sound commands will act on light commands. They found that when they pointed a laser at a microphone and changed the intensity, the light would somehow perturb the microphone’s membrane at that same frequency. The […]

Significant contributions were provided by CRA Director of Government Affairs Peter Harsha and CCC Director Ann Schwartz Drobnis.   Yesterday at a conference of the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI) in DC, a bipartisan collection of Congressional and agency leaders spoke of the urgent need for the United States to retain its leadership role in Artificial Intelligence in the face of dramatically increased competition from U.S. adversaries. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), noting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that the nation that leads AI will rule the world, affirmed the priority he believes AI research and education ought to enjoy by teasing a legislative proposal that would create a new […]

The following is a message to the community from the Computing Research Association (CRA) Executive Director Andrew Bernat.  Dear Colleague, I am pleased to announce that CRA’s Career Mentoring Workshop will take place February 27-28, 2020, in Washington, DC. The application link is here. The deadline to apply (for guaranteed attendance for CRA member institution participants) is October 31st. Appropriate participants from CRA-member institutions are automatically accepted (until we run out of physical space); we will accept participants from non-CRA member institutions if there is space (at a higher registration fee).If you have attended or know someone who has, then you know that this workshop gets raves as a kickstart […]

The following blog was written by Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Vice-Chair Liz Bradley from University of Colorado Boulder and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Times in Artificial Intelligence are or should be changing. See Bob Dylan’s 1964 lyrics below.  Last week the New York Times published an article titled “A.I. Researchers See Danger of Haves and Have-Nots.” Modern AI research, which demands enormous computational resources, large data sets, and significant human expertise, is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone outside the large tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. This includes university labs—which, as the article points out, have traditionally been a wellspring of […]