AI Learns Cultural Values Through Observation

AI can pick up cultural values by mimicking how children learn, according to new research.

Artificial intelligence systems absorb values from their training data. Values, however, differ across cultures. An AI system trained on internet-wide data won’t perform equally well for everyone.

Researchers at the University of Washington suggest AI could learn cultural values by observing human behavior. They had AI systems watch people from two cultural groups play a video game.

Participants in one group consistently behaved more altruistically. The AI assigned to each group learned that groupS level of altruism. It then applied this value to new situations outside of the game.

The findings are published in PLOS One.

“we shouldn’t hard code a global set of values into AI systems, as manny cultures have their own values,” says Rajesh Rao, a UW professor in the Paul G. Allen school of Computer Science & Engineering and codirector of the Center for Neurotechnology.

“We wanted to find out if an AI system can learn values the way children do-by observing people in their culture and absorbing them.”