Proverbs or Progress?

Are our prospects for safety aligned?

This past week, the seven biggest AI companies made headlines by pledging voluntary commitments to the White House to manage the risks their AI technologies pose.

Are we letting the proverbial fox guard the hen house?

While they may look good on paper, these commitments are completely voluntary, and are largely unenforceable.

Commitments, as found on the White House Fact Sheet from July 21:

• Ensuring Products are Safe Before Introducing Them to the Public

  • The companies commit to internal and external security testing of their AI systems before their release. This testing, which will be carried out in part by independent experts, guards against some of the most significant sources of AI risks, such as biosecurity and cybersecurity, as well as its broader societal effects.

  • The companies commit to sharing information across the industry and with governments, civil society, and academia on managing AI risks. This includes best practices for safety, information on attempts to circumvent safeguards, and technical collaboration.

• Building Systems that Put Security First

  • The companies commit to investing in cybersecurity and insider threat safeguards to protect proprietary and unreleased model weights. These model weights are the most essential part of an AI system, and the companies agree that it is vital that the model weights be released only when intended and when security risks are considered.

  • The companies commit to facilitating third-party discovery and reporting of vulnerabilities in their AI systems. Some issues may persist even after an AI system is released and a robust reporting mechanism enables them to be found and fixed quickly.

• Earning the Public’s Trust

  • The companies commit to developing robust technical mechanisms to ensure that users know when content is AI generated, such as a watermarking system. This action enables creativity with AI to flourish but reduces the dangers of fraud and deception.

  • The companies commit to publicly reporting their AI systems’ capabilities, limitations, and areas of appropriate and inappropriate use. This report will cover both security risks and societal risks, such as the effects on fairness and bias.

  • The companies commit to prioritizing research on the societal risks that AI systems can pose, including on avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, and protecting privacy. The track record of AI shows the insidiousness and prevalence of these dangers, and the companies commit to rolling out AI that mitigates them.  

  • The companies commit to develop and deploy advanced AI systems to help address society’s greatest challenges. From cancer prevention to mitigating climate change to so much in between, AI—if properly managed—can contribute enormously to the prosperity, equality, and security of all.

I believe (admittedly, with my tin hat on) that the first two commitments will be much easier to adhere to than the commitment around earning the public’s trust. The horse is out of the barn (to draw out the farmhouse analogies) in terms of early adopter trust, IMO.

We have no consistent way of knowing what’s been generated by AI today, and what’s been generated by humans vs. what’s been generated using AI as a tool, with human oversight. I suspect that will be the case for months, if not years, to come. I fear fraud and deception will flourish in the near term.

Bias, Discrimination & Systemic Issues

Lack of fairness and bias have been implicitly trained into the generative large language models (LLMs) like Google’s Bard or Chat GPT by the very nature of how they’ve been trained, and how they work… they are engines of predictability in language, nothing else.

Societal risks in propagating bias, discrimination, untruths, suspicions are in headlines every day. As the Fact Sheet notes, the track record is abysmal right now. But it’s early days. We have to have faith that newer tools mitigating risks will be rolled out more quickly than those which propogate risks.

And finally, the notion of developing and deploying systems that help address society’s greatest challenges is where I hold my personal greatest hope. Especially in terms of healing our planet.

Tools & Training by AIGG

As we prepare for more to come, the AI Governance Group (AIGG) has developed tools and training to support businesses in protecting your employees, your brands, your Intellectual Property and your organizations themselves in the governance around using AI tools.

We have free drop-in HR Handbook policies for your team to review, augment and approve. We have attorneys, anthropologists and business leaders to support you as you develop your Strategic AI Use Statements that can guide your organization’s use of the tools available to you. And we have bespoke educational workshops available to you as you explore your options.

Connect with us for more information, to get your free Issues List, HR Handbook policy, or to schedule a workshop. We are here for you.