Met de goedkeuring van de EU-AI Act door het Europees Parlement is een nieuw tijdperk aangebroken voor de regulering van kunstmatige intelligentie. Dit vormt een cruciaal keerpunt voor technologiebedrijven, maar ook voor webwinkels die gebruikmaken van AI, schrijft Jesse Weltevreden - professor Digital Commerce aan de Hogeschool van Amsterdam- in zijn gastcolumn.
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Fire fighters operate in a dangerous, dynamic, and complex environment. Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can contribute to improve fire fighters’ situation awareness and decision-making. However, the introduction of AI systems needs to be done responsibly, taking (human) values into account, especially as the situation in which fire fighters operate is uncertain and decisions have a big impact. In this research, we investigate values that are affected by the introduction of AI systems for fire services by conducting several semi-structured focus group sessions with (operational) fire service personnel. The focus group outcomes are qualitatively analyzed and key values are identified and discussed. This research is a first step in an iterative process towards a generic framework of ethical aspects for the introduction of AI systems in first response, which will give insight into the relevant ethical aspects to take into account when developing AI systems for first responders.
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Jo-An Kamp is a lecturer and researcher at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. She coaches ICT students in the fields of UX, research, (interactive) media, communication, (interaction) design, ethics and innovation. She does research on the impact of technology on humans and society. Jo-An is co-creator of the Technology Impact Cycle Toolkit (www.tict.io), a toolkit designed to make people think and make better decisions about (the implementation of) technology and is a member of the Moral Design Strategy research group.
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In dit project ontwikkelt het HvA-lectoraat Responsible IT in co-creatie met Digital Agency Fonk een werkend prototype van een innovatieve educatieve AI-applicatie, die de taalvaardigheid van kinderen en ouders vergroot. Onderdeel van deze applicatie is een functionaliteit voor taalvereenvoudiging op basis van AI. Dit software-onderdeel analyseert tijdens het lezen het AVI niveau van de lezers en past het verhaal hier automatisch op aan. Met audio- en spraakanalyse worden fouten in o.a. uitspraak, grammatica en woordbegrip gedetecteerd, en het niveau van de tekst automatisch verhoogd of te verlaagd. Door de moeilijkheidsgraad van de tekst langzaam te verhogen wordt de leesvaardigheid verbeterd.
Denim Democracy from the Alliance for Responsible Denim (ARD) is an interactive exhibition that celebrates the journey and learning of ARD members, educates visitors about sustainable denim and highlights how companies collaborate together to achieve results. Through sight, sound and tactile sensations, the visitor experiences and fully engages sustainable denim production. The exhibition launches in October 2018 in Amsterdam and travels to key venues and locations in the Netherlands until April 2019. As consumers, we love denim but the denim industry, like other sub-sectors in the textile, apparel and footwear industries, faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project brought leading denim brands, suppliers and stakeholders together to collectively address these issues and take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production. Sustainability challenges are considered very complex and economically undesirable for individual companies to address alone. In denim, small and medium sized denim firms face specific challenges, such as lower economies of scale and lower buying power to affect change in practices. There is great benefit in combining denim companies' resources and knowledge so that collective experimentation and learning can lift the sustainability standards of the industry and lead to the development of common standards and benchmarks on a scale that matters. If meaningful, transformative industrial change is to be made, then it calls for collaboration between denim industry stakeholders that goes beyond supplier-buyer relations and includes horizontal value chain collaboration of competing large and small denim brands. However collaboration between organizations, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to failure. The research behind the Alliance for Responsible Denim project asked a central research question: how do competitors effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability? To answer this question, we used a mixed-method, action research approach. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project mobilized and facilitated denim brands to collectively identify ways to reduce the use of water and chemicals in denim production and then aided them to implement these practices individually in their respective firms.
The denim industry faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been especially criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. Reducing resource use of water, chemicals and energy and changing denim production practices calls for collaboration between various stakeholders, including competing denim brands. There is great benefit in combining denim brands’ resources and knowledge so that commonly defined standards and benchmarks are developed and realized on a scale that matters. Collaboration however, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to fail. This project brings leading denim brands together to collectively take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production, particularly by establishing measurements, benchmarks and standards for resource use (e.g. chemicals, water, energy) and creating best practices for effective collaboration. The central research question of our project is: How do denim brands effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability in denim production? To answer this question, we will use a mixed-method, action research approach. The project’s research setting is the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA), which has a strong denim cluster and is home to many international denim brands and start-ups.
