We are no longer baffled by all the tasks algorithms can perform. And apparently, they are now even able to ‘explain’ their output. But is that something we really want?

There is currently much debate about the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with one widespread view holding that AI should never be used to make consequential decisions affecting people. In this blog post, I suggest that on the contrary, rather than worrying about AI “making decisions” about us, we should should pay more attention to who commissioned the chain of technological action using AI rather than the technology itself.

Skepticism about the use of AI systems is widespread. Many say the systems are too opaque. Professor for Explainable Machine Learning Zeynep Akata wants to change that - and has made the user’s perspective the focal point of her research.