AI goes to summer school

In early June, 2023, 39 participants from 20 countries gathered at Mila – Quebec AI Institute in Montreal to attend the very first Summer School in Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Rights.

During the week-long event, hosted in collaboration with the University of Montreal, they met with interdisciplinary experts and explored how to responsibly design and deploy AI systems through themes such as responsibility, transparency, ethics, law and governance.

They also attended skills development workshops and designed responsible AI projects based on challenging real-world scenarios. 

Most of all, they collaborated and bonded with peers from all over the world and a wide range of backgrounds including master and doctoral students, early-career researchers and professionals from the public, private or non-profit sectors.

Catherine Régis, Mila researcher, Full professor of Law at the University of Montreal and scientific director of the Summer School, thought of it as a way to better integrate human rights concepts and principles into the conversation around responsible AI at the national and international level.

“It was so exciting to see people from all around the world and from different backgrounds like computer science, law and ethics coming together around a common agenda of responsible AI and human rights,” she said.

Benjamin Prud’homme, Executive Director of the AI for Humanity team at Mila, said that the Summer School was a good opportunity to bridge interdisciplinary gaps and contribute to the global discussion around responsible AI.

“We are at an exceptional moment in the conversation about the development and deployment of AI where almost every country in the world –at the local, national and international levels– is questioning how to approach the opportunities and risks of AI,“ he said.

Source: Mila