University of Utah Chosen as News Open Challenge Finalist
A small collaborative team assembled by Communication professor Avery Holton has been chosen as a finalist for the AI and the News Open Challenge. Of 520 applicants, the university's team is one of 66 now remaining for part of a $750,000 grant.
Their project, "Beyond Bots: Empowering Journalists Through an Analysis of Guidelines of AI Emerging in Newsrooms," aims to examine the ways in which artificial intelligence is shaping news creation and consumption. There work will focus on newsroom observation and interviews with journalists and news organizations to outline ethical and inclusive guidelines for AI policy making. The team includes Valerie Belair-Gagnon (Minnesota) and Nikki Usher (George Washington University).
The Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative will announce winning ideas in the first quarter of 2019.
The AI Initiative is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Omidyar Network, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The anchor institutions leading the initiative are the MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.