AI and the News: An Open Challenge

Deadline: 2018-10-12
Award: $750,000
Open to: Everyone*

Artificial intelligence — and its subfield of machine learning — is reshaping the landscape of news and information. From the algorithms filtering what we see on social media, to the use of machine learning to generate news stories and online content, AI has and will continue to play a major role in shaping what and how information is distributed and consumed.

As researchers and companies continue to advance the technical state of the art, we believe that it is necessary to ensure that AI serves the public good. This means not only working to address the problems presented by existing AI systems, but articulating what realistic, better alternatives might look like.

This open challenge, which will award up to $750,000 to a range of projects, is seeking fresh and experimental approaches to four specific problems at the intersection of AI and the news:

● Governing the Platforms
● Stopping Bad Actors
● Empowering Journalism
● Reimagining AI and News

We believe there are a diverse range of communities that can bring their expertise to bear on these issues but are frequently left out of the conversation. This challenge is open to anyone: We’re looking for journalists, designers, technologists, activists, entrepreneurs, artists, lawyers from a variety of communities around the world — anyone who thinks they have a good idea about addressing these problems that may not have been tried before.