Brooklyn’s Maya Wiley appointed to President Biden’s groundbreaking AI board

April 26, 2024 Mary Frost

Maya Wiley. AP Photo/Seth Wenig

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Renowned civil rights attorney, former mayoral candidate and Brooklyn resident Maya Wiley has been appointed as an inaugural member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, DHS announced Friday.

President Joe Biden directed Mayorkas to establish the board, which includes 22 representatives from a range of sectors.

The board will develop recommendations to help keep critical infrastructure — such as transportation, pipelines, power grids and the internet — safe while developing and deploying AI technology, and help DHS stay ahead of evolving threats posed by hostile nation-state actors.

Wiley will serve with top technology, infrastructure and civil rights experts, including the CEOs of OpenAI, NVIDIA, IBM, Occidental Petroleum, Microsoft, Alphabet and many more.

“It is critical to have a civil rights perspective on any board with the mission to responsibly deploy artificial intelligence in our nation’s infrastructure,” Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement. While the technology can bring positives, AI “also poses great threats, including the spread of bias and hate speech online, stoking fear, distrust and hate in our communities of color.”