Responsible (use of) AI

Abstract

Although there is a rich history of philosophical definitions of ethics when applied to human behavior, applying the same concepts and principles to AI may be fraught with problems. Anthropomorphizing AI to have characteristics such as “ethics” may promote a dangerous, unrealistic expectation that AI can be trained to have inherent, guaranteed ethical behavior. The authors instead advocate for increased research into the ethical use of AI from initial ideation and design through operational use and sustainment. The authors advocate for five key research areas: (1) education in ethics and core AI concepts for AI developers, leaders, and users, (2) development and use of model cards or datasheets for datasets to provide transparency into the strengths, limits, and potential biases of a trained model, (3) employing human-centered design that seeks to understand human value structures within a task context and enable effective human-machine interaction through intuitive and transparent interfaces, (4) targeted use of run time assurance that monitors and modifies the inputs or outputs of a trained model when necessary to enforce ethical principles such as safety or limiting bias, and (5) developing best practices for the use of a joint human-AI co-creation and training experience to enable a shared mental model and higher performance through potential emergent behavior.