The Wikimedia Foundation has joined the Partnership on AI, an organization that brings together academics, researchers, civil society organizations, companies building and utilizing AI technology, and other groups working to better understand AI’s impacts.

The Partnership on AI brings together both commercial and nonprofit organizations to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies. Their work includes serving as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.

“Wikimedia is conscious of the urgent need to build equitable foundations for AI.  Understanding how intelligent systems influence how we work and learn is critical to ensuring that knowledge is freely accessible to everyone, and that biases and potential negative impacts of AI are mitigated,” said Dario Taraborelli, Director, Head of Research at the Wikimedia Foundation.

As the host to Wikipedia, the world’s freely accessible online encyclopedia, Wikimedia will be an active participant in the Partnership on AI’s working groups, ensuring that advances in artificial intelligence systems as applied to collaborative knowledge creation can contribute to advance best practices in the field.

In particular, the Wikimedia Foundation will be working closely with the Fair, Transparent, and Accountable AI working group to identify best practices to eliminate potentially biased information or data, in the hope of creating more equitable and fair artificial intelligence systems.

The Wikimedia Foundation uses a variety of AI systems to support the work of our volunteer community. As part of this partnership, the Foundation will be extending the expertise of Principal Research Scientist Aaron Halfaker and Senior Design Researcher Jonathan Morgan to be part of the Fair, Transparent, and Accountable AI working group.