Katherine Maher, chief executive and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, writes:

Too often, artificial intelligence is presented as an all-powerful solution to our problems, a scalable replacement for people. Companies are automating nearly every aspect of their social interfaces, from creating to moderating to personalizing content. At its worst, A.I. can put society on autopilot that may not consider our dearest values.

Without humans, A.I. can wreak havoc. A glaring example was Amazon’s A.I.-driven human resources software that was supposed to surface the best job candidates, but ended up being biased against women. Built using past resumes submitted to Amazon, most of which came from men, the program concluded men were preferable to women.

Rather than replacing humans, A.I. is best used to support our capacity for creativity and discernment. Wikipedia is creating A.I. that will flag potentially problematic edits — like a prankster vandalizing a celebrity’s page — to a human who can then step in. The system can also help our volunteer editors evaluate a newly created page or suggest superb pages for featuring. In short, A.I. that is deployed by and for humans can improve the experience of both people consuming information and those producing it. [Continue reading…]