When dealing with data, scientists have often struggled to account for the risks and harms using it might inflict. One primary concern has been privacy - the disclosure of sensitive data about individuals, either directly to the public or indirectly from anonymised data sets through computational processes of re-identification.

Error-prone or biased artificial-intelligence systems have the potential to taint our social ecosystem in ways that are initially hard to detect, harmful in the long term, and expensive - or even impossible - to reverse.

Only by developing a deeper understanding of AI systems as they act in the world can we ensure that this new infrastructure never turns toxic.

Kate Crawford Quotes