Yahoo Finance Facebook is investing millions in a new AI ethics centre in Germany
With European Parliament elections looming in May, and anxiety running high about the effects of fake news on voters, Facebook has announced it will collaborate with the German government to fight election interference.
On 20 January, the platform also announced that it will partner with one of Germany’s top technical universities to build an Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethics institute. This will involve an investment of £5.8m ($7.5m) over five years into an independent AI ethics research centre at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) to investigate how AI effects people’s lives.
Facebook praised “Germany’s position at the forefront of the conversation surrounding ethical frameworks for AI … and its work with European institutions on these issues.”
The AI ethics centre will begin its work in February. A press spokesman from the TUM told Yahoo Finance UK that Facebook’s financial investment in the centre was “an unconditional donation” and that the company would not sit on the advisory board of the institute and its sole goal was to enable research into AI.
“At the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, we will explore the ethical issues of AI and develop ethical guidelines for the responsible use of the technology in society and the economy,” said TUM professor Christoph Lütge, who will lead the centre.
Speaking at the DLD Munich technology conference on Sunday, COO Sheryl Sandberg said that Facebook would liaise with Germany’s federal cyber-security office to “help guide policy making in Germany and across the EU on election interference.”
Facebook’s head of ad transparency told CNN Business last week that the social media company also plans to issue new rules for campaigns buying ads around elections in India and the EU this year.
Germany has taken a number of measures to force social media companies to take more responsibility for content posted on their platforms. In October 2017, it passed a law forcing Facebook and Twitter to remove hate speech within 24 hours. If they repeatedly break this law, they will face a maximum fine of €50 million ($59 million).
In December last year, a preliminary report by the German cartel office decided that Facebook had abused its dominant market position to collect and monetize user data without people’s consent. It is expected to ban the company from using this practice, which will affect data sharing between Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp too.
