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British Lords Call For An AI Council To Keep The Robots In Check

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If an algorithm is making a significant or sensitive decision that might affect your life, wouldn’t you want to know?

It’s not a hypothetical scenario, in the U.S. and U.K. algorithms are already being used to decide whether suspects should be held in custody or how much healthcare support someone should receive.

This morning the U.K.’s House of Lords Select Committee called for the creation of an AI Council, which would create a mechanism to inform people about when such crucial decisions are not being made by a human.

“An ethical approach ensures the public trusts this technology and sees the benefits of using [AI]. It will also prepare them to challenge its misuse,” said Lord Clement-Jones, chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, which published its findings this morning.

Credit: Liberal Democrats.

Transparent AI

Most of the recommendations of the Lords report, entitled AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able? which came at the end of a wide-ranging six-month inquiry, are largely unsurprising.

The report called for artificial intelligence to be developed for the good of humanity, to always be fair, and to never do harm.

But the recommendation for an AI Council is the first step towards regulating artificial intelligence, and will certainly raise eyebrows.

If created, the Lords recommended that the AI Council would become the “industry body for AI” and act as a bridge between the private and public sector helping to coordinate the rollout of the technology.

It would also play a role in educating and supporting the public via postgraduate conversion courses to help people retrain and work in the AI sector later in life.

“The U.K. has a unique opportunity to shape AI positively for the public’s benefit and to lead the international community in AI’s ethical development, rather than passively accept its consequences,” said Clement-Jones.

Regulating the machines

While entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have been outspoken in their calls for proactive regulation of artificial intelligence, the Lords report recommends a more reactive approach.

“Blanket AI-specific regulation, at this stage, would be inappropriate,” they write, instead pointing to existing sector-specific regulators like the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The problem with blanket AI regulation is, as we recently saw with autonomous cars, even the ethics behind the decisions machines will soon be making are in dispute, leaving hard and fast rules impossible to fashion.

However, an AI Council along with the recently leaked plan for a Government Office for Artificial Intelligence which sits between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, would certainly be a starting point should a regulator be needed.

Britain isn’t yet ready to regulate the robots, but today’s report and its transparency recommendations take the U.K. a step closer.

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