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Content type: Examples
The US Department of Homeland Security awarded a $113 million contract to General Dynamics to carry out the Visa Lifecycle Vetting Initiative (VLVI), a renamed version of the Extreme Vetting Initiative and part of a larger effort called the National Vetting Enterprise. In May 2018, public outrage led the DHS to back away from a machine learning system that would monitor immigrants continuously; however, the reason it gave was that the technology to automate vetting did not yet exist. These…
Content type: Examples
In October 2018, the Singapore-based startup LenddoEFL was one of a group of microfinance startups aimed at the developing world that used non-traditional types of data such as behavioural traits and smartphone habits for credit scoring. Lenddo's algorithm uses numerous data points, including the number of words a person uses in email subject lines, the percentage of photos in a smartphone's library that were taken with a front-facing camera, and whether they regularly use financial apps on…
Content type: Examples
In November 2018, worried American parents wishing to check out prospective babysitters and dissatisfied with criminal background checks began paying $24.99 for a scan from the online service Predictim, which claimed to use "advanced artificial intelligence" to offer an automated risk rating. Predictim based its scores in part on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram posts - applicants were required to share broad access to their accounts - and offered no explanation of how it reached its risk…
Content type: Examples
In 2017, US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it would seek to use artificial intelligence to automatically evaluate the probability of a prospective immigrant “becoming a positively contributing member of society.” In a letter to acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, a group of 54 concerned computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and researchers objected to ICE’s proposal and demanded that ICE abandon this approach because it would be…
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece originally appeared here.
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Tech competition is being used to push a dangerous corporate agenda.
High-tech industries have become the new battlefield as the United States and China clash over tariffs and trade deficits. It’s a new truism that the two countries are locked in a race for dominance in artificial intelligence and that data could drive the outcome.
In this purported race for technological high ground, the argument often goes, China…