Episode 04: Do we know what AI is doing?

Banks get computer programmes to assess whether their clients are
credit worthy. Computer software helps to select personnel. How
and why the AI makes an assessment or recommendation is, however,
often not transparent. When it comes to artificial neural
networks, even experts can’t unscramble what’s going on inside
the black box and how the AI comes to its conclusions. Another
problem is that because the algorithms are trained with data
deriving from reality, they are in danger of replicating a world
that we actually want to change, reproducing discriminatory
behaviour, for example. 


The opportunities inherent in this knowledge are explained in
Episode 4 of “AI and Us” by Humboldtians Christian Becker-Asano,
Tobias Matzner, Daniel Rückert and Aimée van Wynsberghe.


The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation


Every year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables more
than 2,000 researchers from all over the world to spend time
conducting research in Germany. The Foundation maintains a
network of well over 30,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in
more than 140 countries worldwide – including 57 Nobel Laureates.


As part of the German government’s Artificial Intelligence
Strategy, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation can appoint a
total of 30 Alexander von Humboldt Professors for Artificial
Intelligence in the years up to 2024. These chairs are
contributing to work being done to comprehensively investigate
the opportunities AI offers for our future and to make use of
them. They will also help strengthen Germany’s standing as an
internationally attractive and influential location in this
important field.