Mozilla announced on Tuesday that it’s offering five-figure grants to researchers and creatives studying the impact of artificial intelligence on society. This latest round of the annual Mozilla awards will net lucky winners up to $50,000 for producing AI-awareness content: videos, browser extensions, or interactive data visualizations.
The problems of AI are legion: YouTube’s algorithms have been criticized for harming children by introducing them to hugely inappropriate content, Facebook’s content-moderating AI exacerbates fake news, while Google employees staged a series of public protests after a Gizmodo report uncovered its AI was being used by the US military. Complex societal issues, racism, misogyny, militarism, etc. are being re-created in the tools we build.
https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-for-drones-1823464533
To bring awareness to the ways AI and machine learning may threaten “a healthy internet,” Mozilla wants to reward creative artists and researchers for digging into the topic, offering a total of $225,000 to seven lucky applicants. People can apply as individuals or as groups. The individual awards may change, but Mozilla’s site lists the packages as follows:
Two $50,000 total prize packages ($47,500 award + $2,500 MozFest travel stipend)
Five $25,000 total prize packages ($22,500 award + $2,500 MozFest travel stipend)
Applicants will be judged by a committee of Mozilla staff and former fellows, and they’ll be accepted through August 1, 2018. Winners will be announced during MozFest, held October 26-28, 2018.
