On Monday, the European Union (EU) published guidelines regarding the development of trustworthy A.I. If you read one of my previous emails, we discussed ethics around Artificial Intelligence. These algorithms are powerful and can easily be misused. Regulating them is going to be extremely difficult but the EU hopes they can provide some form of guidelines to encourage creators to be ethical in their development.

Essentially what they said is:

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

You can read their website for more information: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-1893_en.htm 

I do not claim to be good at legal speak and neither is English my first language but am I the only who thinks that’s a lot of general, vague statements? Maybe it is because regulating AI is going to be quite difficult but it has got to be done one way or another. There needs to be a way to regulate and even punish the distribution of harmful deep fakes. The EU has launched a pilot project intended to test draft ethical rules with a group of 52 expects across industry and academia called the High Level Group on AI. If they can’t figure out how to regulate AI, who will?

If you are thinking of getting a Law degree, AI regulation is one area I would urge you to specialize in.

It’s a brave new world!