Facebook’s Ethics In AI Research Awards: Who Are The Winners From India?

To encourage research on artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, Silicon Valley-headquartered Facebook said that it has now selected six projects from India that will focus on three key areas – governance, cultural diversity and operationalising ethics.

The company announced Ethics in AI research awards in June with a regional focus on India. It had said that the proposed budget should be within INR 10 Lakh-INR 20 Lakh. The company also said that AI technological developments pose intricate and complex ethical questions that the industry alone cannot answer.

Therefore, Facebook sought research questions in the application of AI from independent academic research institutions along with the companies building and deploying the technology.

The challenge was open to academic institutions, think tanks, and research organisations registered and operational in India. The solutions were sought across: operationalizing ethics / explainability / fairness, governance and cultural diversity.

The shortlisted candidates were reviewed by judges such as Professor Sudeshna Sarkar (IIT Kharagpur), Sunil Abraham (CIS), and Bharath Visweswariah (Omidyar Network). Here are the winners, according to reports:

1. Operationalizing Ethics / Explainability / Fairness

• Patient-Centric Frameworks for the Evaluation of AI-Enabled Medical Tests

PI: Amit Sethi, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay)

Collaborators: Swapnil Rane and Zakia Khan, Tata Memorial Centre

• Targeted Bias in Indian Media Outlets

PI: Animesh Mukherjee, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur)

Collaborators: Pawan Goyal and Souvic Chakraborty, IIT Kharagpur

2. Governance

• Ethical Implications of Delegating Decision-making Journey to AI Systems

PI: Dr Rahul De’, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM Bangalore)

Collaborator: Sai Dattathrani, IIM Bangalore

• A ‘Public Law of Information’ for India

PI: Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Centre for Law and Policy Research

3. Cultural Diversity

• Mitigating Bias in Face Recognition for Vast Regional Diversity in India

PI: Richa Singh, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology-Delhi (IIT-Delhi)

Collaborator: Mayank Vatsa, IIIT-Delhi

• Regulatory Impact Assessment of the National AI Market Place of India

PI: Varadharajan Sridhar, International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIT Bangalore)

Collaborator: Shrisha Rao, IIIT Bangalore

According to a Gartner survey, AI adoption in organisations has tripled in the past year, and AI is a top priority for CIOs. And, AI will be one of the top workloads that drives infrastructure decisions through 2023, according to Gartner.

Major unicorns in the Indian startup ecosystem have acquired at least one AI company in the last two years. An indicator that AI and machine learning play a key role in sustaining competitive advantage and delivering the superior user experience.

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