MARVEL delivers a disruptive Edge-to-Fog-to-Cloud ubiquitous computing framework that enables multi-modal perception and intelligence for audio-visual scene recognition, event detection in a smart city environment. The project had to address the issue of Artificial Intelligence and Ethics in a very interesting context. In particular, under the expert guidance of the Project Coordinator, the whole project team worked together to demonstrate the elimination or mitigation of potential algorithmic biases perceived as a threat to the project by the ethics reviewers.

AI (or algorithmic) bias describes systematic and repeatable errors in a computer system that create unfair outcomes, such as favoring one arbitrary group of users over others. AI bias is found across platforms, including but not limited to search engine results and social media platforms, and can have impacts ranging from inadvertent privacy violations to reinforcing social biases of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.

Building on top of the high-quality feedback we received from the project coordinator, technical manager and all project partners, Privanova analysed relevant applicable framework and implemented it fulfilling the ethics requirements. As a result, MARVEL achieved overall better ethics compliance including safeguards for diversity, non-discrimination and ensuring fairness across all project outcomes. By following EU guidance, the project successfully implemented measures preserving the principle of transparency and effectively safeguarding its results from emerging AI biases.