AI: Creation, Impact, and Governance
The Creation, Impact, and Governance of AI
Defining Artificial Intelligence
There is no single universally accepted definition for Artificial Intelligence (AI) among practitioners, often leading to extensive debate.
For simplicity, AI can be loosely defined as a computerized system that exhibits behavior commonly thought of as requiring intelligence, similar to human forms.
The Catalysts of Current AI Progress
AI is not a singular technology but a constellation of technologies enabling new capabilities across various applications and domains.
The current wave of significant AI progress and enthusiasm began around 2010. It was driven by three interconnected primary factors:Three interconnected primary factors drove it
Availability of Big Data: Raw material for AI, sourced from e-commerce, businesses, governments, and more.
Dramatically Improved Machine Learning Techniques and Algorithms: These techniques leverage the vast data available.
Capabilities of More Powerful Computers: Essential for running complex machine learning algorithms and processing big data.
These three factors together have produced a powerful new industrial wave, establishing AI as the new infrastructure for the modern technological revolution.
The Pervasive Impact of AI
Economic Transformation: By 2016, the five largest companies in the world by market capitalization had all become technology companies, explicitly declaring themselves AI businesses around or since that period.
Daily Life Integration: Almost everyone uses or interacts with AI daily, often through these major technology companies deeply ingrained in our lives.
Societal Alteration: Beyond individual user experience, AI is fundamentally altering the world at scale.
Data Economy Participation: Users contribute to the data economy, which feeds assessments made by machines about preferences, thoughts, feelings, and even predictions of future actions (e.g., propensity to commit a crime).
Governance Imperative: There is a critical need to effectively govern the immense power derived from vast information and the decisions supported by AI.
Emerging Governance Challenges and Ethical Questions
The societal impacts of AI raise numerous questions, including:
Ensuring AI technologies are safe, secure, and trustworthy.
Representing principles of justice, fairness, and human rights.
Promoting inclusivity and preventing unintended consequences.
Supporting rather than marginalizing vulnerable populations.
Ensuring the broad distribution of AI's value and benefits.
Developing effective governance mechanisms for AI technologies and their scaled societal impacts.
The Rise of Responsible AI Principles
The importance of AI governance has led to a rapid proliferation of organizations developing and adopting principles for responsible AI development, especially in the last few years.
These organizations span governments (e.g., European Commission, Beijing Academy for Artificial Intelligence), multilateral institutions, companies, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
The volume of such efforts highlights the urgency and widespread recognition of these issues.
The Partnership on AI (P.AI)
Formation and Mission: One of the earliest efforts, the Partnership on AI, was formulated in 2016 to address the field's toughest questions.
Structure: It is a broad, global coalition of nearly 100 organizations across industry, civil society, and academia, collaboratively defining responsible practices for AI development and deployment.
Founders' Insight: Established by AI research scientists from major companies (Apple, Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) who recognized the imperative for the AI developer community to engage deeply with other organizations and disciplines.
The scientists understood they were