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Prestigious AI meeting takes steps to improve ethics of research

For the first time, the organizers of NeurIPS required speakers to consider the societal impact of their work.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
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After a year of heavy scrutiny and seemingly endless controversy around artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies, the field’s most prestigious conference has tried to set a good example. For the first time, the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) meeting, which took place completely online this month, required presenters to submit a statement on the broader impact their research could have on society, including any possible negative effects.

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Nature 589, 12-13 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03611-8

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 23 December 2020: This story was updated to clarify that the ethics committee didn't have the power to reject a submission. It was the programme chairs who ultimately rejected submissions because of ethical considerations.

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