EBay And LinkedIn Founders Set Up AI Ethics Fund

(RTTNews) - With a view to promote research into the social impacts of artificial intelligence, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman have joined a team of philanthropists and tech luminaries to create a new $27 million fund.

The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund will focus on advancing AI in the public interest, bringing more humanity into its development process. It will support a cross-section of AI ethics and governance projects and activities, both in the United States and internationally.

Hoffman and Omidyar Network each committed $10 million to the fund, while Knight Foundation committed $5 million. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Jim Pallotta, founder of the Raptor Group, would contribute $1 million each to the fund. As other funders come on board, the fund is expected to grow.

The fund will form a governing board to distribute awards and facilitate other relevant activities in the connective tissue between computer sciences, the social sciences and the humanities.

The founding academic institutions for the initiative will include the MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. The Fund will be housed at The Miami Foundation.

Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation, said, "Artificial intelligence agents will impact our lives in every society on Earth. Technology and commerce will see to that. Since even algorithms have parents and those parents have values that they instill in their algorithmic progeny, we want to influence the outcome by ensuring ethical behavior, and governance that includes the interests of the diverse communities that will be affected."

Activities that the fund will support include a joint AI fellowship program supporting people who are working to keep human issues at the forefront of AI.