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Europe To Pilot AI Ethics Rules, Calls For Participants (techcrunch.com)

The European Commission has launched a pilot project intended to test draft ethical rules for developing and applying AI technologies to ensure they can be implemented in practice. It's also aiming to garner feedback and encourage international consensus building for what it dubs "human-centric AI" -- targeting among other talking shops the forthcoming G7 and G20 meetings for increasing discussion on the topic. From a report: The Commission's High Level Group on AI -- a body comprised of 52 experts from across industry, academia and civic society announced last summer -- published their draft ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI in December. A revised version of the document was submitted to the Commission in March. It's boiled the expert consultancy down to a set of seven "key requirements" for trustworthy AI, i.e. in addition to machine learning technologies needing to respect existing laws and regulations -- namely:

Human agency and oversight: "AI systems should enable equitable societies by supporting human agency and fundamental rights, and not decrease, limit or misguide human autonomy."
Robustness and safety: "Trustworthy AI requires algorithms to be secure, reliable and robust enough to deal with errors or inconsistencies during all life cycle phases of AI systems."
Privacy and data governance: "Citizens should have full control over their own data, while data concerning them will not be used to harm or discriminate against them."
Transparency: "The traceability of AI systems should be ensured."
Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness: "AI systems should consider the whole range of human abilities, skills and requirements, and ensure accessibility."
Societal and environmental well-being: "AI systems should be used to enhance positive social change and enhance sustainability and ecological responsibility."
Accountability: "Mechanisms should be put in place to ensure responsibility and accountability for AI systems and their outcomes."

51 comments

  1. Long live Europe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    ...where we still understand what it means to be free. Long live!

    1. Re: Long live Europe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Waiting for the discussion

    2. Re:Long live Europe... by butchersong · · Score: 1

      If there is one western organization (well other than the UK) I fear abusing AI and directing it in an oppressive manner against its citizens it is the EU. I trust we haven't forgotten about Article 11 and Article 13 recently in the news.

  2. Can we dig by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    ...Isaac Asimov up from the grave?

    1. Re:Can we dig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He gave us the three rules. Lets let him sleep. we know what to do.

    2. Re:Can we dig by mccalli · · Score: 4, Informative

      Four. The Zero'th Law: A robot must not harm humanity .

      That's what they're going for here, but they should read the rest of the extract:

      Trevize frowned. "How do you decide what is injurious, or not injurious, to humanity as a whole?"

      "Precisely, sir," said Daneel. "In theory, the Zeroth Law was the answer to our problems. In practice, we could never decide. A human being is a concrete object. Injury to a person can be estimated and judged. Humanity is an abstraction."

    3. Re:Can we dig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed the oppression that the proletariat live under that we accept as inevitable and necessary looks like full on violence if you are a machine with a directive to prevent it.

    4. Re:Can we dig by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Didn't HAL 9000 assassinate the astronauts to save humanity? Problems with doing Violence X to prevent Violence Y get sticky, putting bots into making large moral tradeoffs. Dictators we call "cruel" were allegedly doing just that. "I have to punish a large group to send a message so that another group doesn't rise up, creating even more violence."

    5. Re:Can we dig by kellymcdonald78 · · Score: 1

      No, it just found that killing the astronauts was the easiest way to way to balance competing directives 1. Process information accurately (do not lie) 2. Keep the information about the monolith secret from Boman and Poole (obey instructions) 3. Ensure mission success

  3. That's a nice list. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would be a shame if it was completely ignored.

    1. Re:That's a nice list. by rapjr · · Score: 1

      This reads like a typical management wish list. You could add "All programmers writing AI systems must be ethical and empathic" but how are you going to enforce that? We can't make ordinary computers secure, the IoT is being built without security, AI will be no different. The security flaws already demonstrated in AI systems (making a Tesla drive into oncoming traffic, racial bias in AI recommendations for prison release) do not look easy to solve, in part because the only existing source of training data is human behavior, which will always have biases, and because the basis of AI decision making is obscured by the nature of the algorithms. AI systems would have to constantly be retrained to adjust to changes in society, which is expensive and difficult and does not increase profit. Security makes systems more difficult to use. Privacy is difficult to define or implement because it's relative to context and computers do not understand human context. The people who are tasked with following this list will instantly water it down to "best practices" which for computer security so far has left system security a few steps behind attackers. However, it's worthwhile to create such a list, if just to start to understand the potential damage AI is going to cause. Since all security and privacy comes down to human behavior, it would be better to try to build a better society which encourages good behavior and to solve inequities and social problems. If most people are relatively comfortable and secure in their lives, fewer of them will try to attack or misuse systems and they won't feel inclined to take advantage of flaws when they appear. Trying to automate ethics in systems built by people using todays technology seems like a lost cause. Start turning psychology and sociology into real sciences used to build a better society rather than using them to get more work and money out of people.

  4. Good, we need pilots by jfdavis668 · · Score: 0

    to fly the Boeing 787 Max. I would trust an AI to fly a plane, wouldn't you?

    1. Re:Good, we need pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All modern planes can fly on their own, including landing. Pilots only exist for parking and blame if something goes wrong.

    2. Re: Good, we need pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What plane can take off on its own?

  5. Translation by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Don't let impartial algorithms with no preconceptions come to conclusions we don't like. Instead, massage them until they agree with what we've already decided coincides with our pre-existing political biases."

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If "ethics" means anything, it means ruling that some otherwise logical conclusions are "unacceptable" because - other, unrelated reasons. Those "unrelated reasons" are determined by a political process - indeed, that's arguably the only thing in life that that should, rightfully, be determined by a political process.

      You're not complaining about the process, you're objecting to the very concept of "ethics".

    2. Re:Translation by the_povinator · · Score: 1
      Ethics means different things to different people. You say that ethics means ruling that ``some otherwise logical conclusions are "unacceptable" because - other, unrelated reasons.''. Does this imply it's not OK for us to believe certain things that are (from a factual point of view) true because doing so might have what, in your view, are negative social effects? It seems to me that that is an infringement on the most basic of human capabilities-- the ability to perceive the truth. I decided a long time ago-- about the time I was leaving my religion and becoming an atheist-- that I would not worry about the effects-- on my eternal soul or on anythings else-- of believing a certain thing and just believe things based on the evidence, because if you don't try to believe the truth, how can you trust your own thoughts?

      I personally believe a lot of things that are considered socially unacceple by most of my peers. I won't say specifically what they are though, because I want to keep my job.

      --
      The .sig is dead, and I believe I had a hand in killing it.
    3. Re:Translation by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Yeah that's called "morality" and it tends not to follow along purely logical lines.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. wank wank wank by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wank wank wank wank wank

    double wank

    EU!

  7. AI? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't really have AI as most people understand it. We have complicated decision tree algorithms and weighted statistical models feeding various Bayesian algorithms, with Markov chains and Monte Carlo simulations helping out.

    So, what the EU really wants to regulate are statistical models, I guess.

    1. Re:AI? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They want to legislate that the math reinforces their political and personal beliefs.

      Kind of like trying to legislate PI = 3 based on the bible.

  8. Could be applied to technology as a whole by DavenH · · Score: 2

    And I think it ought to, but those expectations are mediated by people using and/or governing the technology -- like it's not Xerox's responsibility to prevent a fax machine sending hate mail. Expecting intrinsic adherence to all these social desires is a bit ridiculous.
    Transparency in particular; what does this even mean? The ability to inspect vast inscrutible matrices? It may be that they mean an AI has to intrinsically explain all its outputs, though that would actually limit its capabilities severely. Can you explain the mechanism of how you recognise a face or have an idea?

    1. Re:Could be applied to technology as a whole by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Here's an example of how similar rules already apply under GDPR.

      You apply for a mortgage onl. You are declined by the bank's computer. You have the right to ask why you were declined (transparency) and to have the decision reviewed by a human.

      For facial recognition transparency would mean disclosing things like how reliable the system is, and if it has know limitations (e.g. less reliable with dark skin), and having a system in place to handle an correct errors. Explaining how it works would involve explaining how the system was trained to recognize faces, and what you did to ensure it isn't biased.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  9. Turing Police? by fallen1 · · Score: 1

    If so, William Gibson will be a happy camper then. I, for one, welcome the Turing Police overlords!

    --

    Dream as if you'll live forever.
    Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
    ~Anonymous~

    1. Re:Turing Police? by sheramil · · Score: 2

      I want to know what the penalties are for an AI deliberately disobeying an order, and if the penalty is applied to the AI, its coders, the statisticians who chew the data before it's fed in, or the legal owners. And if there's a penalty for setting an AI loose.

      That'd be a fun job. AI finder general.

    2. Re:Turing Police? by Dru+Nemeton · · Score: 1

      You mean Rick Deckard, right?

    3. Re:Turing Police? by sheramil · · Score: 1

      You mean Rick Deckard, right?

      (Eyeing you suspiciously) and how do YOU know so much about Replicants, eh? Hands where I can see 'em, pal!

  10. awww, isn't that cute by sdinfoserv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Citizens should have full control over their own data" - now show me one single US entity (Corporation or Government for that matter) that will abide by such a concept.
    If we can't have anything close to this before AI, what dream world do you live in to apply this TO AI?

    1. Re: awww, isn't that cute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real world, of course!

    2. Re:awww, isn't that cute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Internet archive.

    3. Re:awww, isn't that cute by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      "Citizens should have full control over their own data" - now show me one single US entity (Corporation or Government for that matter) that will abide by such a concept. If we can't have anything close to this before AI, what dream world do you live in to apply this TO AI?

      You forgot to mention the rest of the friggin world, dood!

      Or is it just the US that triggers your spittle flecked rage?

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  11. Unnecessary by DickBreath · · Score: 2

    If Google doesn't need any AI Ethics, then why does the EU need them?

    Ethics, like anything of value, should be sold to the highest bidder.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    1. Re: Unnecessary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll be dead of CO2 poisoning before any of this happens.

    2. Re:Unnecessary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google wanted AI Ethics pretty hard, but since they didn't use Twitter to obtain their council, they ended up not being able to have it after all. Lesson: Twitter hates everything you do and will find absurd reasons for doing so. Don't ever let Twitter know what you're doing.

  12. Russia is free? Huh? Since when? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait, you're "American", and don't know the difference between a country, a union and a continent, right? ;)

    1. Re: Russia is free? Huh? Since when? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or a creek from a river or a dairy farm from an orchard or corn silk from raccoon fur or a speaker from a microphone. The list is truly endless.

  13. So No AI in the EU then? by sfcat · · Score: 2
    So no AI then I guess...lets go over the list:

    Human agency and oversight: "AI systems should enable equitable societies by supporting human agency and fundamental rights, and not decrease, limit or misguide human autonomy."

    This seems to be a weird EU version of don't decrease human liberty. Whether a specific AI system obeys this is something you can never get everyone to agree upon. To some, self-driving cars without steering wheels violate this principle. Not sure I agree with that but some will see it that way.

    Robustness and safety: "Trustworthy AI requires algorithms to be secure, reliable and robust enough to deal with errors or inconsistencies during all life cycle phases of AI systems."

    Most software systems don't do this for predictable deterministic tasks. All ML algorithms have a built in error rate. Its part of the math. Hell, most humans aren't capable of this when performing many AI tasks.

    Privacy and data governance: "Citizens should have full control over their own data, while data concerning them will not be used to harm or discriminate against them."

    Would be nice. Needs open standards to work. Won't happen because politicians, lawyers and CEOs don't understand software.

    Transparency: "The traceability of AI systems should be ensured."

    No ML or RL algorithm in common use does this.

    Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness: "AI systems should consider the whole range of human abilities, skills and requirements, and ensure accessibility."

    If the dataset is biased, then the prediction will be biased. Its math. Don't blame AI when its just reflecting human society. And AI can't fix human society either, that's our job. Quit blaming technology for human failings.

    Societal and environmental well-being: "AI systems should be used to enhance positive social change and enhance sustainability and ecological responsibility."

    Eh, so no use of AI for companies in finance. I'm sure that will have a positive effect on your banks in the global financial markets.

    Accountability: "Mechanisms should be put in place to ensure responsibility and accountability for AI systems and their outcomes."

    Finally, a good one. But it should be extended to anyone who sells or rents software is responsible for the quality of the software and for losses that incur for its problems. That's a better one...

    This entire framework judges AI incorrectly. The standard isn't perfection. Its better than the humans hired to do the job can do. It would be better if the same standards applied to AI computer systems and humans. That reaches the EU's goal with fewer lawyers.

    --
    "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    1. Re:So No AI in the EU then? by wlorenz65 · · Score: 1

      Just reward the RL algorithm for being traceable.

    2. Re:So No AI in the EU then? by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      It's mainly a crappy wishlist. Let me make another:
      1. Pigs should fly.
      2. Gravity should never lead to humans dying.
      3. Shit should smell like flowers and should be sterile.

      Having said that, the idea was that it is a starting point, i.e. a very, very high bar. FTFA:
      "(i) Starting in June 2019, all stakeholders and individuals will be invited to test the assessment list and provide feedback on how to improve it. In addition, the AI high- level expert group will set up an in-depth review with stakeholders from the private and the public sector to gather more detailed feedback on how the guidelines can be implemented in a wide range of application domains. All feedback on the guidelines’ workability and feasibility will be evaluated by the end of 2019."

      It'll be interesting to see which parts of this list survive that process.

  14. Can we have that for politicians too? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean they're practically already corporate drones with no shred of humanity in them.
    And about as overhyped and artificial an "intelligence" too.

  15. Are you using the tool or is it using you? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Human agency and oversight: "AI systems should enable equitable societies by supporting human agency and fundamental rights, and not decrease, limit or misguide human autonomy."

    Exactly what I've said before: Robots, so-called 'AI' (such as it is, LOL), and similar are tools, fundamentally no different than a shovel or a hammer. As with all tools, we create them to serve us, not the other way around. If these tools are somehow misused or perverted in such a way that violates that fundamental truth, then something must be done to rectify the situation; either establish rules concerning the tool or class of tools in question, or get rid of the tool or class of tools entirely. In a very real way, any tool that threatens to make humanity obsolete has ceased to be a tool and has become something else: a weapon.
    Humanity cannot by definition become 'obsolete', and anything that exists that would cause humanity to become 'obsolete' is anathema.

  16. Replace "AI Systems" with "A person" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Replace "AI Systems" with "A person" and re-read. Once people can do that there won't be a need for another set of rules just for AI. But, yeah, that's not gonna happen.

  17. Reading Comprehension Failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What part of "European Commission" did you miss?

  18. Re: AI Transparency requirement by presidenteloco · · Score: 1

    I guess this will have to come in 5 different levels of explanation of the AI decision:

    Level 1: Explain it to me like I'm 5 or wear a MAGA hat.

    Level 2: Explain it to me like I'm the average regulatory enforcement bureacrat ... ...
    Level 5: Explain it to me like I'm Geoffrey Hinton

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  19. What about combat AI's? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How are they going to police AIs that are designed for lethality? The perimeter patrol AI? The overwatch AI? Anything a patrol dog can be designed for except it can wield advanced weapon systems.

  20. Fundamental rights in the EU by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A Spanish AI will detect any mention of Catalonia.
    A German AI will report on all interest in German art, culture and German history.
    That French AI will be interested in political memes, cartoons and protests.

    Robustness: EU police spyware to keep working on tracking users.
    Data governance: Censorship.
    Transparency: EU nations can see all your data use.
    Diversity: Lots of illegal immigrants.
    Societal and environmental well-being: Reporting of EU users to their nations police when they use the internet in the wrong political way.
    Accountability: The resulting police interviews after an AI reports a user to the gov.
    Trustworthy: No using an EU funded AI project to support any nation's attempt to exit the EU.
    Consultancy: More tax payers money.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  21. Central Planning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Modern Europeans are the descendants of the people who didn't move to America.

    They are in love with central planning, which at best amounts to grandiose talk with lackluster results (and at worst: gulags and concentration camps).

    What do paper-pushing bureaucrats steeped in legalese know about anything? Their call for "participation" will just attract the feckless, impractical coneheads whose goal in life is to smell each other's farts (preferably their own).

  22. Feel good Fluff by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    That's some majorly fluffy bullshit. Vague, undefined, unenforceable, mystic...

    How about we swap out "AI" for "decisions made by politicians and CEOs" and see how far that gets us?