Sony wants to be a leader in "ethical" artificial intelligence amid cynicism about companies using the technology for societal good.
In recent years, big tech companies like Google and Facebook have promoted ethical A.I. research, in which in-house teams are given the freedom to publish papers that reveal flaws in the A.I. software of their employers and other organizations. One goal is to use the research to create better products. A paper highlighting the problems a voice-translation service has in understanding Singaporean-accented English, for instance, could spur a company to create software that works well for everyone and not just people who speak American English.
