Featured image above by Polimerek in MIT Museum during Wikimania 2006 via Wikimedia Commons
Where is artificial intelligence? All around. Both offline and online.
In what form? From commuting to computing, artificial intelligence (AI) has almost imperceptibly become such an important part of life.
That means the AI technologies affect the business of life in many ways – from robots readying to take human jobs in the not too distant future to management of automated features in vehicles. Online, the AI is even more prevalent – translations, detection of friends in pictures shared on the social media, and much more.
That leads us to questions of privacy, data and information sharing, control and ethics since despite their quick proliferation, the AI technologies are relatively new and their development is under no definitive guidelines or oversight.
In an effort to address these and other related questions tech giants including Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft are teaming up to create a “non-profit organization that will work to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies.”
Named as the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI), the organization will also help formulate best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field.
The companies issued a statement saying, academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics will be invited to join the Board of the organization.
“The objective of the Partnership on AI is to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society.”
Here are some other points the organization has set out in a public announcement:
“Together, the organization’s members will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology. It does not intend to lobby government or other policy-making bodies.
“The organization’s founding members will each contribute financial and research resources to the partnership and will share leadership with independent third-parties, including academics, user group advocates, and industry domain experts.
“There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the board of this new organization.
“The Partnership is in discussions with professional and scientific organizations, such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), as well as non-profit research groups including the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), and anticipates announcements regarding additional participants in the near future.
“AI technologies hold tremendous potential to improve many aspects of life, ranging from healthcare, education, and manufacturing to home automation and transportation. Through rigorous research, the development of best practices, and an open and transparent dialogue, the founding members of the Partnership on AI hope to maximize this potential and ensure it benefits as many people as possible.”
Views and News will welcome comments by its readers on the issue.
