On any given day, tens of millions of people find themselves trapped in instances of modern slavery. This CCC visioning workshop, organized in collaboration with Code 8.7[1], brought bring together members of the computing research community along with anti-slavery practitioners and survivors to lay out a research roadmap aimed at applying AI to the fight against human trafficking. Building on the kickoff Code 8.7 conference held at the UN in February 2019, the focus for this event will be to link the ambitious goals outlined in the 20-Year Community Roadmap for AI Research[2] to challenges vital in achieving the UN’s Target 8.7.

After brief introductions including opportunities to hear from survivors, advocates, and policy experts, the workshop turned to a series of highly interactive sessions on a selection of computing research topics selected in advance by the organizing committee. Each session was led by a pair of researchers chosen for their complementary perspectives.

[1]   Code 8.7 is a community that researches, develops and applies AI-powered anti-slavery strategies, directly informed by survivors. See https://delta87.org/code87/ for further details.

[2]   https://cra.org/ccc/visioning/visioning-activities/2018-activities/artificial-intelligence-roadmap/