AI & COVID Workshop

AI in the time of COVID-19

In October 2020, DFF held a three-day workshop that aimed to tackle the use of AI in the time of COVID-19. It brought together participants at the forefront of challenging government use of automated decision-making systems (ADMs), who brainstormed strategies for safeguarding digital rights compromised by these systems during the pandemic. We have published a report, as well as numerous other resources, from the workshop here.

19 December 2020

This report summarises key takeaways from the workshop’s discussion. It explores the development of COVID-19 technologies in the context of growing digitisation and automation in how governments interact with the public. It also provides a survey of the wide array of COVID-19 apps identified by workshop participants, and the risks they pose to public life and human rights.

Further sections draw from participants’ own experiences of challenging ADMs to offer a toolkit for the strategic fight against unlawful and harmful uses of such systems. Finally, it discusses several topics identified as pressing areas for intervention: convincing the courts, preventing the re-purposing of COVID tech, solving tech inequalities, and tackling human and machine bias.

Visual resources

Day #1

Day #2

Day #3

Animations

Videos

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