Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important yet invisible role in our everyday lives. Many sectors, including healthcare, education, financial services, labour markets and advertising are now using automated decision-making processes by processing large amounts of data. While automated decision-making and other types of AI offer us benefits and seem to make our lives easier, they can be subject to bias. Discrimination against women, people of colour, or poor people are making their way into algorithmic decision-making, which may be exacerbating existing inequalities.

On behalf of the Digital Working Group of the Greens/EFA, MEPs Alexandra Geese, Patrick Breyer, Marcel Kolaja, Kim van Sparrentak, Sergey  Lagodinsky and Damian Boeselager would like to invite you to a hearing to discuss the societal impact of automated decision-making processes with a special focus on discrimination.

The hashtag for the event will be #AIdiscrimination

Moderator: Jennifer Baker, European journalist specialising in EU policy and legislation in the technology sector.

15:00 – 15:15: Welcome words and introduction by Alexandra Geese MEP

15:15 – 16:30 : PANEL 1 – Exposing bias and societal imbalances in algorithmic systems

How do bias and societal imbalances occur and are perpetuated through algorithmic systems? Where are the problems with automated decision making when used by public authorities and by private entities?

Chair: Alexandra Geese MEP; @alexandra_geese

Moderation: Jennifer Baker; @BrusselsGeek

Speakers:

• Christiaan van Veen, Director of the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights project at New York University School of Law and Special Advisor on new technologies and human rights to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights @cpjvanveen
• Dr. F.S. (Seda) Gürses, Assistant Professor in the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at TU Delft at the Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, and an affiliate at the COSIC Group at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven; @sedyst
• Nakeema Stefflbauer, Founder and Program Director of FrauenLoop gUG, a Berlin non-profit organisation that trains resident, refugee and immigrant women for careers in the technology field; @DocStefflbauer
• Prof. Florian Gallwitz, Professor of computer science at Nuremberg Institute of Technology (TH Nürnberg Georg-Simon-Ohm) specialising in pattern recognition, computer vision, speech recognition, deep learning, robotics; @FlorianGallwitz
• Sanne Blauw, Dutch journalist focusing on Artificial Intelligence for the news platform “The Correspondent“; @sanneblauw

Respondent: Gabriele Mazzini, Policy Officer at DG CNECT, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Industry Unit of the European Commission

16:30 – 16:45 :  COFFEE BREAK

16:45- 18:00 : PANEL II – Tackling the problems

What are the solutions to tackle bias and societal imbalances in algorithmic systems? What kind of legislation needs to be updated and which new rules do we need? What are possible technological responses?

Chair: Patrick Breyer MEP; @echo_pbreyer

Moderation: Jennifer Baker

Speakers:

• Katharine Jarmul, Founder at Kjamistan, machine learning engineer and privacy activist; @kjam
• Fanny Hidvegi, Member of the EU’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence and Policy Manager of Access Now Europe; @infoFannny
• Frederike Kaltheuner, technology policy expert and former Director of Programme at the global civil liberties organisation Privacy International, 2019/2020 Mozilla Tech Policy fellow; @F_Kaltheuner

Respondent: Gabriele Mazzini, Policy Officer at DG CNECT, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Industry Unit of the European Commission

18:00-18:10 : Closing remarks by Kim Van Spaarentak MEP