Tech industry groups adopts AI policy principles

The Information Technology Industry Council, representing leading technology companies such as Apple, Amazon Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, has released a set of Policy principles on artificial intelligence (AI). The principles are aimed at guiding ‘industry and governments to ensure AI’s responsible growth and deployment’. On the one side, the companies commit to promoting responsible design and deployment of AI systems, developing AI systems with safe design and safeguards to ensure controllability by humans, promoting the responsible use of data and ensuring its integrity, and partnering with other stakeholders to mitigate bias, inequity, and other potential harms in automated decision-making systems, and to inform a reasonable accountability framework for all entities in the context of autonomous systems. On the other hand, governments are encouraged to invest in AI research in areas such as cyber-defense, data analytics, and robotics, as well as to ‘use caution before adopting new laws, regulations, or taxes that may inadvertently or unnecessarily impede the responsible development and use of AI’. Other issues tackled in the principles include security and privacy, education, training, and workforce.