The Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT) has called this week, as part of the celebration of the Four Years From Now (4YFN) event, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), to promote an ethical look at the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, in order to prevent this increasingly present technology from having negative consequences for people.
In this sense, the APDCAT has organized the session ‘Artificial Intelligence. An Ethical Overview’, at the MWC which was held in Barcelona from February 28 to March 3, to analyze the challenges of implementing AI technologies, and highlight some of the dangers this technology can pose: discrimination, inappropriate use of facial recognition, and unethical practices in e-commerce, among others.
The director of the APDCAT, Meritxell Borràs i Solé, opened the session, which included the intervention of Ricardo Baeza, Director of Research at the Institute of Experiential AI at Northeastern University, Silicon Valley, and a member of the DATA Lab at Khoury College of Computer Sciences, as well as other experts in the field.
The session served to address the state of this technology, learn about the relevant regulations, cultural differences, cognitive biases, and also to discuss what society can do to meet these challenges in the near future.
During his speech, Borràs spoke about the opportunities and also the risks involved in artificial intelligence systems and applications, which have become popular in society in the last decade. For Borràs, “we cannot appreciate its impact or the risks it hides, because AI transforms the world in an unprecedented way”. The goal, among other things, is to avoid the biases that can arise with the design of algorithms, which can influence or discriminate against us, the indiscriminate use of mass video surveillance with facial recognition and the control of social behavior.
The director of APDCAT added that from a technical point of view, the available technology needs to be improved in terms of transparency and reliability, and also pointed out the need to have legal mechanisms to guarantee citizens the protection of their rights.
The most urgent, however, is to “maintain a critical view of AI”, which questions the operation of systems to find those elements that have a negative impact on people that are not obvious from a technical point of view. “Therefore, ethics must be incorporated into AI, and in the process we must be demanding, beyond proposing ethical codes”, concluded Borràs.
HUAWEI AppTouch Debuts at MWC 2022
HUAWEI AppTouch has been unveiled to global app developers at the Mobile World Congress 2022 held in Barcelona this week. The platform helps developers distribute apps and games to a global user base and significantly grow their revenue by pooling resources from global mobile carriers and automotive enterprises. AppTouch has partnered with over 60 carriers serving 40+ countries and regions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific region. As of December 2021, AppTouch had helped developers reach more than 400 million users around the world.
Full-Stack Data Center
Huawei also held its Industrial Digital Transformation Summit during Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2022 in Spain. At the summit, Huawei unveiled brand-new solutions for data center and intelligent campus scenarios. Campuses have high requirements for data center storage, computing power, and energy efficiency, and face challenges in managing their vast assets. Together with industry customers, opinion leaders, and global partners, Huawei discussed industry trends, introduced latest practices in digital transformation, and shared the vision of an innovative future where digital technology, business value, and eco-friendly development come together.
During his opening speech, Li Peng, President of Huawei West European Region, emphasized that digital transformation and environmental protection are key topics in the future. Huawei provides innovative Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and a full portfolio of products to help global customers build robust ICT infrastructure and enable industrial digital transformation. In fact, over the last few decades, Huawei has been focusing on reducing energy consumption and carbon emission through continuous product and solution innovation.
Intelligent Power Transmission Line Inspection Solution
At the Mobile World Congress 2022, during the industrial digital transformation summit, Huawei again unveiled the Intelligent Power Transmission Line Inspection Solution 2.0. Through two sub-solutions – channel visualization and tower foundation safety – it addresses some of the key issues in manual line inspection and tower foundation perimeter safety. The solution is slated to help electric power enterprises detect each risk and protect each line.
Traditional manual inspection of power transmission lines faces a plethora of issues, including safety, management, efficiency, response, real-time performance, and operational risks. To address these, Huawei developed the Intelligent Power Transmission Line Inspection Solution 1.0, which integrates intelligent vision, site energy, and microwave backhaul. It ensures reliable data backhaul and visualizes the status of power transmission lines in environments where signals are missing, power supply is unavailable, and imaging is difficult. The upgraded version 2.0 adds several key functions. This includes radar-video linkage that constantly monitors the conditions around the tower foundation, securing the power grid.
The tower foundation is the skeleton that supports the stable and reliable operation of power transmission lines. However, it faces many artificial and natural threats. At the same time, manual inspection is dangerous and performed in harsh environments.