Independent Community-rooted AI Research

The Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) was launched in December 2021 by Timnit Gebru as a space for independent, community-rooted AI research, free from Big Tech’s pervasive influence. Unlike the current trend of centralizing power and claiming to build one giant model that serves the needs of everyone while stealing data and exploiting labor, DAIR works on small task-specific models that serve the needs of specific communities. The organization shows that this approach not only outperforms current models from Big Tech corporations in applications like machine translation and automatic speech recognition, but also serves to distribute power across the world in the hands of grassroots organizations. Instead of envisioning a future where technology is used to plunder resources, colonize the cosmos and disenfranchise cultural workers, DAIR urges technologists to use their skills to address the needs of communities that are often harmed by the race to build monopolies.

Speaker: Timmit Gebru, Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute

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