Leading tech industry researchers from Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft convened to announce a partnership on artificial intelligence (AI) best practices, at IBM’s Watson headquarters in New York City, Weds., September 28, 2016. Founding members of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence from left: Eric Horvitz, Microsoft; Francesca Rossi, IBM; Yann LeCun, Facebook and Mustafa Suleyman, Google/DeepMind. Not pictured is Ralf Herbrich, Amazon. Photo courtesy of IBM / Jon Simon

New York, USA - September 28, 2016

Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Microsoft today announced that they will create a non-profit organization that will work to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies (AI) and formulate best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field.

Academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics will be invited to join the Board of the organization, named the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI).

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

The objective of the Partnership on AI is to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society.

Together, the organization’s members will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology.

It does not intend to lobby government or other policymaking bodies.

Leading tech industry researchers from Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft convened to announce a partnership on artificial intelligence (AI) best practices, at IBM’s Watson headquarters in New York City, Weds., September 28, 2016. Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the board of this new organization.

The Partnership is in discussions with professional and scientific organizations, such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), as well as non-profit research groups including the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), and anticipates announcements regarding additional participants in the near future.

AI technologies hold tremendous potential to improve many aspects of life, ranging from healthcare, education, and manufacturing to home automation and transportation.

Partners Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

Through rigorous research, the development of best practices, and an open and transparent dialogue, the founding members of the Partnership on AI hope to maximize this potential and ensure it benefits as many people as possible.

For more information, visit  www.partnershiponai.org

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

AMAZON

“We’re in a golden age of Machine Learning and AI. As a scientific community, we are still a long way from being able to do things the way humans do things, but we’re solving unbelievably complex problems every day and making incredibly rapid progress. This partnership will ensure we’re including the best and the brightest in this space in the conversation to improve customer trust and benefit society. We are excited to work together in this partnership with thought leaders from both industry and academia.”

- Ralf Herbrich, Director of Machine Learning Science and Core Machine Learning, Amazon

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

DEEPMIND / GOOGLE

“Google and DeepMind strongly support an open, collaborative process for developing AI. This group is a huge step forward, breaking down barriers for AI teams to share best practices, research ways to maximize societal benefits, and tackle ethical concerns, and make it easier for those in other fields to engage with everyone’s work. We’re really proud of how this has come together, and we’re looking forward to working with everyone inside and outside the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to make sure AI has the broad and transformative impact we all want to see.”

- Mustafa Suleyman, Co-Founder and Head of Applied AI, DeepMind
- Greg Corrado, Senior Research Scientist, Google

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

FACEBOOK

“The possibilities for positively impacting a global society with advances in AI are numerous, ranging from connectivity, healthcare, and transportation. As researchers in industry, we take very seriously the trust people have in us to ensure advances are made with the utmost consideration for human values. By openly collaborating with our peers and sharing findings, we aim to push new boundaries every day, not only within Facebook, but across the entire research community. To do so in partnership with these companies who share our vision will help propel the entire field forward in a thoughtful responsible way.”

- Yann LeCun, Director of Facebook AI Research

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

IBM

“Over the past five years, we’ve seen tremendous advances in the deployment of AI and cognitive computing technologies, ranging from useful consumer apps to transforming some of the world’s most complex industries, including healthcare, financial services, commerce, and the Internet of Things. This partnership will provide consumer and industrial users of cognitive systems a vital voice in the advancement of the defining technology of this century – one that will foster collaboration between people and machines to solve some of the world’s most enduring problems – in a way that is both trustworthy and beneficial.”

- Francesca Rossi, AI Ethics Researcher, IBM Research

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

MICROSOFT

“We’re excited about this historic collaboration on AI and its influences on people and society. We see great value ahead with harnessing AI advances in numerous areas, including health, education, transportation, public welfare, and personal empowerment. We’re extremely pleased with how early discussions among colleagues blossomed into a promising long-term collaboration. Beyond folks in industry, we’re thrilled to have other stakeholders at the table, including colleagues in ethics, law, policy, and the public at large. We look forward to working arm-in-arm on best practices and on such important topics as ethics, privacy, transparency, bias, inclusiveness, and safety.”

- Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow & Managing Director, Microsoft Research

Photo courtesy of Partnership on AI

Tenets

We believe that artificial intelligence technologies hold great promise for raising the quality of people’s lives and can be leveraged to help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health, and education.

The Partnership on AI shares the following tenets:

1. We will seek to ensure that AI technologies benefit and empower as many people as possible.
2. We will educate and listen to the public and actively engage stakeholders to seek their feedback on our focus, inform them of our work, and address their questions.
3. We are committed to open research and dialog on the ethical, social, economic, and legal implications of AI.
4. We believe that AI research and development efforts need to be actively engaged with and accountable to a broad range of stakeholders.
5. We will engage with and have representation from stakeholders in the business community to help ensure that domain-specific concerns and opportunities are understood and addressed.
6. We will work to maximize the benefits and address the potential challenges of AI technologies, by:
   a. Working to protect the privacy and security of individuals.
   b. Striving to understand and respect the interests of all parties that may be impacted by AI advances.
   c. Working to ensure that AI research and engineering communities remain socially responsible, sensitive, and engaged directly with the potential influences of AI technologies on wider society.
   d. Ensuring that AI research and technology is robust, reliable, trustworthy, and operates within secure constraints.
   e. Opposing development and use of AI technologies that would violate international conventions or human rights, and promoting safeguards and technologies that do no harm.
7. We believe that it is important for the operation of AI systems to be understandable and interpretable by people, for purposes of explaining the technology.
8. We strive to create a culture of cooperation, trust, and openness among AI scientists and engineers to help us all better achieve these goals.


Why the Partnership on AI?  Why Now?

Over the past few years, there has been a surge in real-world applications of AI with the rollout of technologies that use advances in learning, perception, and natural language.

Today, there are vibrant ongoing discussions about how to maximize the value of these new applications and services, and about the potential societal influences of the technologies, including issues around ethics, economics, privacy, transparency, bias and inclusiveness, and trustworthiness of the technologies.

The founding research scientists care about these issues too, and see the opportunity for ongoing cross-industry discussion and the development of best practices to help gain the most from AI technologies for the benefit of people and society.

This group foresees great societal benefits and opportunities ahead, but we also understand that as with every new technology there will be concerns and confusion associated with new applications and competencies, and we look forward to working together on these important issues.

We intend to come together to address these important issues, including ethics, safety, transparency, privacy, biases, and fairness.


How can I get involved?

We are very excited to work with anyone who is interested in joining our effort.
This is a collaborative and multi-stakeholder organization and we want people with an interest in AI from across all fields to take part.

If you want to take part in some way then please email us at getintouch@partnershiponai.org 


Contact information

Anna Sekaran
IBM Media Relations
1 (203) 434-3975
amsekara@us.ibm.com  


Sources:

IBM

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/index.wss  

The Partnership on AI

http://www.partnershiponai.org/  



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