AI Ethics: EU’s New Guidelines in 2023

Artificial Intelligence has become one of the most important parts of our daily lives. Right from chatbots to our very own Gmail spam, AI is everywhere. The advent of AI really surprises us. A great deal can be done using AI and while that is quite acceptable; the scary part is its self-learning process, which makes some of us think that this Artificial Intelligence triggered humanoid can replace us. 

To some people, however, AI technology is a kind of liberation. As with any technology, to make the correct use of AI, some ethics should be followed.

That’s why the European Union has launched a set of guidelines for the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence. The guidelines are named as ‘Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI’. The motive of this guideline is to make the EU member nations follow an ethical AI norm. So that the technicians can proceed with the understanding of both the potentials and the pitfalls of AI.

What About the AI Guideline by the EU?

Well, the EU is not the first authority to modify ethical details about Artificial Intelligence. There were many more governmental organizations that laid out some recommendations over the use of AI. One of them is ‘Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence’ published by the National Science and Technology Council. 

The European Union has however given more efforts to make the guidelines more practicable. Additionally, they have categorized the whole matter into some sub-groups. Let’s check out what they mainly mentioned in their guidelines.

Transparency

If any AI machine decides anything on behalf of its user, the user should get the notification prior to the work. The user should get clear reasons why the machine decides so.

Safety

Any system should come with some safety measures. Similarly, the AI systems should work while they can withstand the attacks from hackers. They should be responsible for protecting the personal and commercial data of the user.

Environmental Governance

The manufacturer has to keep in mind that AI development may affect other races apart from humans. The decision taken by AI Systems should take into account the environment around it which include races other than human.

Fairness

The decision confirmed by the AI systems should stay fair, at any cost. These devices should not be programmed in the light of gender, race, or any other personal identifiers. The decisions should be neutral.

The ultimate goal of Artificial Intelligence is to make life easier for human beings. We have to keep an eye on this factor. We need to be more sensible while tackling such issues. That’s why we need to follow these guidelines to improve the combination of human-lives and Artificial Intelligence. 

How Specifically do These Guidelines Act?

We have already mentioned a number of organizations have posted ethical guidelines on the application of Artificial Intelligence. More or less, all these guidelines are almost the same. Some of the measures have been mentioned below. 

• Did the manufacturer include a risk identifying test to protect the user’s data from hackers?
• Has the designer carried out the impartial tests on the AI systems? Can they guarantee the unbiasedness of the systems, as well?
• Are the systems able to inform human beings before making any decision? How much accuracy is guaranteed while making any decision?
• Does the device comprise of a kill switch feature that can terminate all the tasks of the device, by humans?
• What kind of harm can the AI machine cause? And to what extent?
• Is the device usable by specially-abled individuals or with some special needs?

If the manufacturer or the concerned authority can reply to all of the above-mentioned queries correctly and in the affirmative, the designs should get the approval. 

What About the Cloud?

Tech companies are using some cloud-resident tools to create Artificial Intelligence systems. They have to make sure that these cloud services come with trust and transparency. 

Google is working on how to improve the ability to interpret situations through AI systems. The task is the collaboration between Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Well, Google has announced Google Cloud AI Explanations. 

Explanations determine the contribution of each data factor to the output of a machine learning model. This will clearly tell why the decision was made. But the authority has also stated that any explanation method has some limitations. 

Along with this, the company has also launched Face Detection and Object Detection features within the Cloud infrastructure. 

Explainability is all a company wants to embed in the initial design of an AI model. However, the output of the existing models should also be checked for consistency and fairness for enhancing those.

What’s Coming Up in 2020?

As time passes, we can expect that the requirement of Artificial Intelligence would definitely rise. Thus people have to adopt more AI-enabled devices in the near future. Therefore, ethics and guidelines should be more sensible when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. So that the lifestyle is more promising with Artificial Intelligence.