In the coming years Europe will focus on technology that benefits people; a fair and competitive economy; and an open, democratic and sustainable society.
Europe has everything it needs to become a world leader in Artificial Intelligence systems that can be used and applied safely, and it is pursuing this with determination, as is beginning to take shape in the European Strategy for Artificial Intelligence and the WHITE PAPER on Artificial Intelligence, which proposes a framework for developing trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, based on excellence and trust.
Until recently it was said that Europe still took into account Isaac Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics, which were popularized thanks to his novels: first, a robot must never harm a human being; second, a robot must obey human beings unless their orders conflict with the first law; and third, a robot must protect its own existence unless doing so conflicts with either of the first two laws.
The world we live in today is not as technologically advanced as the one predicted in Isaac Asimov’s novels, and what seems to have finally become obsolete are his three laws. An ethical review of the advent of robotics and its associated potential intelligence was due, and it is at this moment that the European Union has proposed a set of seven ethical rules that companies must apply to their Artificial Intelligence developments, in a first approach to what should be the beginning of an Ethics for Machines.
The European Commission considers that “Artificial Intelligence presents new challenges for the future of work and raises legal and ethical questions”, while at the same time offering clear benefits in various sectors “such as healthcare, energy consumption, car safety, agriculture, climate change, financial risk management and, in general, practically every sector of the economy”.
For these reasons, it has basically decided to propose some ethical standards drawn up by an interdisciplinary group of 55 experts, 35 of whom are technologists or representatives of the technology sector, and 5 of whom are ethicists and philosophers, among other experts such as lawyers, businesspeople and sociologists.
The main objective has been to gain the trust of citizens, and to this end the sector and the political actors called on to regulate it must set “increasing well-being” as their goal, observing values of the European Union such as “respect for human dignity, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights”.
The 7 rules would be:
1. Human oversight: Artificial Intelligence systems must enable equitable societies by supporting human agency and fundamental rights, and not decrease, limit or misguide human autonomy. They must be overseen by human beings, with “appropriate contingency measures”.
2. Robustness and safety: Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence requires algorithms to be secure enough and robust enough to cope with errors or inconsistencies during all phases of the life cycle of Artificial Intelligence systems. Systems must be “resistant” and “resilient” against possible attempts at manipulation or hacking, and have contingency plans.
3. Privacy and data governance: Citizens must have full control over their own data. Data concerning them will not be used to harm or discriminate against them. The privacy of citizens’ data must be guaranteed throughout the entire life cycle of Artificial Intelligence.
4. Transparency: The traceability of AI systems must be guaranteed. They must be transparent, which means being able to reconstruct how and why they behave in a certain way, and those who interact with these systems must know that it is Artificial Intelligence, as well as which people are responsible for it.
5. Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness: AI systems must consider the whole range of human abilities and requirements, and adequately guarantee accessibility. Social diversity must be taken into account from the development stage to ensure that the algorithms they are based on have no direct or indirect discriminatory biases.
6. Societal and environmental well-being: Artificial Intelligence systems, and technological development in general, must be used to foster positive social change, environmental sustainability and ecological responsibility.
7. Accountability: Mechanisms must be put in place to ensure responsibility and accountability for AI systems and their outcomes, to external and internal auditors.
But this European approach is not new: as early as 2018 Google also proposed its 7 commandments of Artificial Intelligence. These are principles under which it has promised to govern the use and development of Artificial Intelligence, since most of its projects today are products of this technology. In fact, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, has repeated numerous times that we are moving from a Mobile-First world to an AI-First one and that there is no going back.
Examples worth citing include Google Assistant, its voice assistant, the way Google Photos categorizes images depending on what appears in them, or the recent Google Duplex, which is able to hold a conversation just as a person would, idioms included. These developments are part of the everyday offering of the large technology corporation; and it has stated numerous times that its bet on the future lies in Artificial Intelligence and that it is enormously necessary to create ethical standards for its proper use in the service of the human being.
In a document that received wide media coverage in 2018, it declared that it would meet these objectives through the implementation of seven principles in all the developments it would undertake in the area of AI. “We announce that these seven principles will guide our work going forward. These are not theoretical concepts; they are concrete standards that will actively govern our research and product development and will impact our business decisions”, they stated in the document.
Although Google is not the only technology company that uses and bets heavily on Artificial Intelligence today, it is the first to propose rules of conduct on a specific trend. At the same time as it declared the 7 principles, it also stated that it will not use AI to develop applications that could cause any kind of harm, such as AI-based weapons or technologies capable of gathering information for espionage that contravene international rules or violate human rights.
Google stated that ethical AI is its big bet for the long term and “the right foundation for the company and the future development of Artificial Intelligence”, even if this means giving ground on other short-term decisions. “We have made clear our intention to take a long-term ethical perspective, even if this means making significant changes in the short term”.
Although Google is at the forefront of efforts in the development of Artificial Intelligence, it says it will continue to collaborate and share its learnings with the technology ecosystem. In fact, the declaration of these 7 principles came right after, following a major controversy, a large group of Google employees asked the company to stop developing Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence solutions and technologies jointly with United States military operators such as DARPA, which led to the sale of Boston Dynamics, the famous robotics company.
These are the 7 principles of Artificial Intelligence, according to Google:
1. Be socially beneficial
They will take into account the social and economic impact of any development and will proceed to implement new technologies in places or environments where the risk is lower than the benefit.
“We will continue to respect cultural, social and legal norms in the countries where we operate. We will continue to carefully assess when to make our developments available on a non-commercial basis”
2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias
They will seek to prevent technology from reinforcing or creating biases of opinion or reflecting judgments that could have a negative impact on society, particularly in relation to characteristics of race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, social class, sexual orientation, abilities or political and religious leanings.
3. Be built and tested for safety
In terms of safety, Google commits to developing AI in line with principles that put the safety of users first, and clarified that, where appropriate, developments will be tested in controlled environments.
4. Be accountable
In this regard, it announced its commitment to creating developments that are subject to human direction and control. “We will design AI systems that provide appropriate opportunities for feedback and relevant explanations”.
5. Incorporate privacy design principles
Its developments will be open to scrutiny, and it urged working under privacy architectures that provide stakeholders with transparency and control over the use of data. “We will approach AI development with responsibility and share AI knowledge by publishing educational materials, best practices and research that enable more people to develop useful AI applications”.
6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence
Google considered the impact this technology can have in different scientific environments, and therefore committed to always aspire to excellent developments. «AI tools have the potential to unlock new realms of scientific research and knowledge in critical domains like biology, chemistry, medicine and environmental sciences. We aspire to high standards of scientific excellence as we work to progress AI development«.
7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles
Lastly, Google stated that it will limit the development of technology for applications that could cause some kind of harm, and that it will evaluate this risk on four factors: the purpose of the development, the origin of the technology to be developed and its originality, its potential for scalability, and how much sense it makes for Google to be involved in developing that application.
They bear a certain resemblance to the 7 European rules, and in general to the various proposals that have appeared over the last two years. And although Europe is called on to lead the ethical development of digital technology, we must not forget that Google had already raised it, and this benefits all of humanity.
Originally published in Spanish on IANética (2020). English version prepared for TecnoHumanismo.
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