The White House yesterday established a new office focused on coordinating U.S. efforts in Artificial Intelligence research. The new National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, under the leadership of Founding Director and current U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Lynne Parker, “is charged with overseeing and implementing the United States national AI strategy and will serve as the central hub for Federal coordination and collaboration in AI research and policymaking across the government, as well as with private sector, academia, and other stakeholders.” See the new logo that features a bald eagle clutching a neural network.  The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) established the new office in accordance […]

Contributions to this post were provided by CCC Council member Maria Gini. Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member and Distinguished Professor of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Maria Gini was recently featured in an article highlighting the work of U of M’s Minnesota Robotics Institute (MnRI).   The Minnesota Robotics Institute is a unit of U of M’s College of Science and Engineering Department that brings together students and researchers from all over the world to pursue an education in robotics. The article highlighted a couple of ongoing and past projects that have come out of the institute including a robot used to detect autism in […]

Contributions to this post were provided by CRA’s Communication Specialist Shar Steed.  The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) recently elected its 2021 Fellows. The AAAI Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions — usually over at least a ten-year period — to the field of artificial intelligence. Two of the newly elected fellows are Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council members!  Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, University of Michigan Jenkins was recently interviewed by the New York Times about his thoughts on the Artificial Intelligence field’s failure to make systems that are accurate for everyone. He is one of the authors of the Next Wave Artificial Intelligence: […]

Contributions to this post were provided by CCC Council member Odest Chadwicke Jenkins.  Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Odest Chadwicke Jenkins (University of Michigan) was recently interviewed by the New York Times about his thoughts on the AI field’s apparent failure to make systems that are accurate for everyone. Many of today’s AI systems have biases against people of color and the broader diversity beyond the white, male, affluent and able-bodied developers  of most computer and robot systems. We need to be sure that when autonomous robots make their decisions, the designer’s flaws and judgements are not “baked in.”   Robotics researchers in our community are committed to ending the […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to announce the release of the Assured Autonomy report, titled Assured Autonomy: Path Toward Living With Autonomous Systems We Can Trust.   The report is the result of a year-long effort by the CCC and over 100 members of the research community, led by Ufuk Topcu (The University of Texas at Austin). Workshop organizers included Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University and CCC), Nancy Cooke (Arizona State University), Missy Cummings (Duke University), Ashley Llorens (Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory), Howard Shrobe (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Lenore Zuck (University of Illinois at Chicago).  Given the immense interest and investment in autonomy, a series of […]

In an effort to prepare for the next pandemic and perhaps aid in the current one, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), along with the National Academy of Engineering, hosted a virtual workshop entitled Role of Robotics in Infectious Disease Crises on July 9-10, 2020. Organized by Gregory Hager (The Johns Hopkins University), Vijay Kumar (The University of Pennsylvania), Robin Murphy (Texas A&M University), Daniela Rus (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Russell Taylor (The Johns Hopkins University), the workshop consisted of over forty participants including representatives from the engineering/robotics community, clinicians, critical care workers, public health and safety experts, and emergency responders. Today we are pleased to release the resulting report […]