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On our 18th birthday in July 2021 - Idiro Analytics announced the establishment of an AI Ethics Centre in Dublin, Ireland to focus on the development of standards and technologies that can be used by industry and government to ensure that their implementations of AI are trustworthy, free from bias and discrimination.
The Idiro AI Ethics Centre was the brainchild of Geraldine Magnier, and is expected to create 20 new R&D jobs over the next 3 years. As pioneers in machine learning and AI, Idiro is ideally positioned to capitalise on its broad and deep industry expertise to lead the way in the development and implementation of ethical AI within its Irish and international client base.
Commenting on the launch, Aidan Connolly CEO said that “as the use of artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in business and society, it is imperative that desirable human values of fairness, justness and trust are replicated in the technologies we build. In Idiro, we are committed to the development of technologies and standards that are human-centred, putting citizens and users at the heart of what we do.”
There have been many high-profile cases where AI models have been found to discriminate against certain sectors of society. Since AI typically learns from historic data, past discrimination is likely to repeat. As AI becomes more sophisticated, industry and society will be challenged to ensure that AI works for all citizens – not just a particular subset.
This fact has not been lost on regulators and the EU has issued a number of papers on this topic. It is expected that the domain of AI will be regulated (at least within the EU) over the coming years. A recent paper by the European Commission outlines its perspectives and ambitions for developing and regulating the use of AI. As the EU moves from issuing guidelines to ultimately regulating the use of AI it is timely for Idiro and industry in general to put ethics in AI at the centre of the use of this valuable but occasionally poorly understood technology.
Geraldine Magnier stated that the centre would look to foster collaboration across industry, academia and government, to work towards a common goal of capitalising on the potential of AI to do good without discriminating against any sector of society. “With the launch of this centre we are aiming to nurture the adoption of inclusive AI whereby all sectors of society can benefit from the use of this technology; we have many cases of discrimination against certain groups, but omission is also a bias, and it is our goal to develop standards and technologies that eliminate such discrimination while also maximising the benefit of AI and ML. The centre will also be a think-tank facility, as AI should be enhancing all our lives”.
Dr Adrian Byrne will be the lead researcher at the centre. This position is being funded under the Enterprise Ireland Marie Curie Fellowship programme in partnership with CeADAR. Dr Byrne has spent the last number of years as a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham and will be moving to Dublin to take up his post with Idiro in August.
Idiro Analytics is Ireland’s leading data analytics consultancy. Idiro specialises in designing and delivering data-driven solutions using advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, business intelligence and predictive analytics to solve complex business problems and significantly improve critical KPIs.
With services delivered in over 20 countries, Idiro has analysed the data of more than 15% of the world’s population. The combination of extensive industry knowledge and the ability to develop creative, flexible, and innovative solutions using the latest technology is the reason the company has built successful long-lasting relationships with its clients over the last 17 years. Idiro’s collaborative approach to working with customers has earned it a reputation as the trusted partners in the sphere of data analytics. Sectors where Idiro has deep knowledge include telecoms, financial services, utilities, government, and manufacturing.
Idiro partners with clients to help shape a vision on how to get the best value from available data assets, and to deliver optimal solutions regardless of their analytics maturity. Solutions range from structuring data pipelines to diagnostic business intelligence deliverables, right through to cutting-edge machine learning and predictive analytics that enable action and intervention from insight.
Dr. Adrian Byrne
Lead Researcher
With qualifications and work experience in economics and statistics, Adrian is a quantitative social scientist with expertise in multilevel modelling investigating inequalities at different levels and examining how these inequalities interact. Adrian has been awarded funding to undertake a research project entitled “Algorithmic auditing for improving model explainability and detecting bias using sociodemographic data”. This project is jointly supported by the CeADAR centre (National Centre for Applied Data Analytics & Machine Intelligence at University College Dublin) and Idiro Analytics.
Dr. James McCabe
Narrative Designer
Perhaps the greatest myth of the modern era is that the facts don't lie. Inherent in the technology paradigm is that data remains always neutral - rather than the given sum of information which is gathered, stored, measured and interpreted by fallible human beings. As a story consultant of many years' experience with international brands and organizations, Dr. James McCabe specializes in narrative dynamics - the dramatic principles which present your audience with all the arguments - including the opposing ones - and lets each decision maker decide for themselves. In the emerging field of AI Ethics, James helps organizations understand the full human dimensions of their decisions.
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Our goal is to disseminate information about the budding AI ethics movement and the ways we can encourage technology developers, policy-makers, academics and the public to join us in the forefront of AI ethics in Ireland.
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