Source: BBC

By Jane Wakefield

Technology reporter

The world’s biggest technology companies are joining forces to consider the future of artificial intelligence.

Amazon, Google’s DeepMind, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft will work together on issues such as privacy, safety and the collaboration between people and AI.

Dubbed the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, it will include external experts.

One said he hoped the group would address “legitimate concerns”.

“We’ve seen a very fast development in AI over a very short period of time,” said Prof Yoshua Bengio, from the University of Montreal.

“The field brings exciting opportunities for companies and public organisations. And yet, it raises legitimate questions about the way these developments will be conducted.”

Bringing the key players together would be the “best way to ensure we all share the same values and overall objectives to serve the common good”, he added.

One notable absentee from the consortium is Apple. It has been in discussions with the group and may join the partnership “soon”, according to one member.

The group will have an equal share of corporate and non-corporate members and is in discussions with organisations such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

It stressed that it had no plans to “lobby government or other policy-making bodies”.

“AI has tremendous potential to improve many aspects of life, ranging from healthcare, education and manufacturing to home automation and transport and the founding members… hope to maximise this potential and ensure it benefits as many people as possible,” it said.

It will conduct research under an open licence in the following areas:

• ethics, fairness and inclusivity
• transparency
• privacy and interoperability (how AI works with people)
• trustworthiness, reliability and robustness

Microsoft’s managing director of research hailed the partnership as a “historic collaboration on AI and its influences on people and society”, while IBM’s ethics researcher Francesca Rossi said it would provide “a vital voice in the advancement of the defining technology of this century”.

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