# Wikimania 2023 - Plenary - 19 August - From Mozilla Foundation, The Importance of Real Transparency in AI

The Importance of Real Transparency in AI

Speaker: Ashley Boyd of the Mozilla Foundation

Abstract: AI-powered internet platforms have an outsized impact on billions of lives. We need accountability mechanisms for these platforms and the companies that make them — and accountability starts with transparency. More and more internet platforms are relying on AI systems to recommend and curate content. And it’s clear that these systems can have negative consequences, such as misinforming consumers, radicalizing the disenchanted and polarizing large portions of the country. While the dark side of AI systems may be harmful to users, those systems are a gold mine for platforms. Rabbit holes and outrageous content keep users watching, and thus consuming advertising.

Transparency can help address this problem. But what does real transparency look like? First, it should apply to parts of the internet ecosystem that most affect consumers, like AI-powered ads and recommendations. In the case of political advertising, platforms should meet researchers’ baseline requests by introducing databases with all relevant information that are easy to search and navigate. In the case of recommendation algorithms, platforms should share crucial data like which videos are being recommended and why, and also build recommendation simulation tools for researchers. People should be able to easily identify why specific content is being recommended to them or who paid for that political ad in their…

- Kind: Short
- Year: 2023
- Runtime: 21 min
- By: Wikimania 2023
- Genres: Science
- Archive: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2023_-_Plenary_-_19_August_-_From_Mozilla_Foundation,_The_Importance_of_Real_Transparency_in_AI.webm)
- Licence or status: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Wikimania 2023
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/commons/138319733?play=1)