Google launches global council to advise on AI and tech ethics

The council, which is slated to publish a report at the end of 2019, includes technology experts, digital ethicists, and people with public policy backgrounds, Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president for global affairs, said at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology conference.The group is meant to provide recommendations for Google and other companies and researchers working in areas such as facial recognition software, a form of automation that has prompted concerns about racial bias and other limitations.

“We want to have the most informed and thoughtful conversations we can,” Walker said on stage at the MIT Technology Review event in San Francisco. “We want to sit down with the council and see what agenda they want to set.”Google already has its own internal AI …