#fellowshipstory (21 results)

In Small Towns Across France, Victims Face an Uphill Battle for Justice Over AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

Hundreds of parents across Europe are learning that photographs of their children could have been used to generate artificial child sexual abuse material (CSAM). As AI-generated abuse images proliferate, victims and their families are discovering just how difficult it can be to obtain answers, recognition and justice.

Click, Strip, Repeat: Sex Workers and Digital Violence Amidst the Deepfake Boom

For victims of targeted, sexualized attacks, searching for redress is not easy: they are blamed for posting pictures of them online, accused of overreacting by the police, and followed for life with the consequences of losing the control over their own body and image.

Seen and Silenced: How Russian Surveillance Software Suppresses Georgian Civilians Rights

Over the past two years, the Georgian government has built a comprehensive face recognition enforcement system, procured by a Moscow-based company with ties to the Federal Security Service (FSB). The impact on demonstrators is appalling.

The AI Revolution Comes With the Exploitation of Gig Workers 

Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies manage the human work behind AI development. However, they face accusations of worker exploitation, underpayment and wage theft. Big tech companies benefit from this work model.

Infrastructure or Intrusion? Europe’s Conflicted Data Center Expansion

Data centers, cornerstones of the EU’s digital ambitions, are expanding rapidly across the continent. Public responses to this digital prioritization vary dramatically. Some communities embrace them as engines of development; others push back, citing threats to the environment and their quality of life.

Scams and Shadow Workers: A Black Market is Selling European Accounts for AI Training

AI data annotation companies are losing control of their supply chain. Criminal networks are taking over the work account management.

False Positives: A Podcast on Financial Discrimination & De-banking

AlgorithmWatch and Agence France-Presse (AFP) released a podcast on automated discrimination in the financial sector, based in a six-month long investigation conducted in the framework of our Algorithmic Accountability Reporting fellowship.

For Trans People, Online Transitioning Can Be a Nightmare

Just a formality? Updating one’s online identity can be like running the gauntlet and a flawed data architecture only makes it worse for the transgender community.

“All Rise For the Honorable AI”: Algorithmic Management in Polish Electronic Courts

Polish courts are using algorithms to support their decision-making process, e.g. for evaluating cases or issuing resolutions. Some see AI as a game changer, but the lack of a critical assessment and transparency as well as the impact on judges’ independence and fairness are reasons for concern.

Fighting in the Dark: How Europeans Push Back Against Rogue AI

Automated systems go astray, they contribute to child sexual violence, deny people their social benefits, or block organizations' online presence. The affected people often feel helpless when their rights are violated, but some are taking up the fight while current laws fail to protect the victims.

Work Inside the Machine: How Pre-saves and Algorithmic Marketing Turn Musicians into Influencers

Streaming platforms allow users to add upcoming tracks to their playlists, in order to listen to them as soon as they are released. While this sounds harmless, it changed the habits of independent musicians, who feel they have to adapt to yet another algorithm.

Generative Artificial Intelligence is slowly entering children’s lives

A leak from Amazon gave us a glimpse of what they have planned for youngsters - and parents. How much personal data do we (or should we) accept handing over when it comes to our children?

Automated navigation systems are still wreaking havoc on small towns’ streets

Apps like Google and Waze are redirecting traffic to secondary roads that are not equipped to handle the traffic, disrupting their infrastructure. Small cities have little capacity to change this.

Algorithmic Accountability Reporting

Peeking into the Black Box

Welfare fraud scoring, predictive policing, or ChatGPT: Lawmakers and government officials around the world are increasingly relying on algorithms, and most of them are completely opaque. Algorithmic Accountability Reporting takes a closer look at how they work and the effects they have. But only very few media outlets conduct such reporting. Why?

200 students failed their exams. Automated proctoring could be to blame, but doubts remain 

In Spain, 200 students of the International University of La Rioja failed their exams. Some blame a glitch in the proctoring software, but it might have been a change in the system’s rules. University officials gave contradictory explanations, leaving students to fight against bureaucracy and the assessment of a machine.

The Automated Hunt for Cybergroomers

Algorithms have been developed to help track down cybergroomers, who stalk minors online. But the reliability of automated systems is controversial – and they can even criminalize children and teens.

ChatGPT-like models boom, but small languages remain in shadows

A lack of source material, investment, and commercial prioritization are all holding back the development of generative models and automated moderation for languages spoken in smaller countries and regions.

Let the Games Begin: France’s Controversial Olympic Law Legitimizes Automated Surveillance Testing at Sporting Events

Building up from a decade of surveillance creep, the new French law is yet another example of how sporting events are used to normalize automated surveillance systems in public spaces.

The algorithm that blew up Italy’s school system 

An algorithm was supposed to save time by allocating teachers on short-term contracts to schools automatically. Failures in the code and in the design severely disrupted teachers’ lives.

Basque Country: how an algorithm to assess the risk of gender-based violence sees people from “different cultures”

Police in the Basque Country use an algorithm to predict gender-based violence. The tool's accuracy is unclear, and it leaves a lot of room for the personal opinions of police officers.

Reels of Fortune: Instagram-shaped memories for a bigger reach

The algorithm used to do it for us, now we do it for the algorithm: Platforms seek data on what people think good memories are. One user tells us how she constructs an end-of-year Recap Reel on Instagram.