Computing the Future: how Microsoft calculates the ethical risks of AI.

While the economic benefits for AI industry leaders seems obvious, there are still too many unanswerable questions and too many unpredictable consequences to make AI a surefire profitable endeavor.

This uncomfortable level of uncertainty is one of the reasons Microsoft recently published the book, The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society (PDF)….

Microsoft’s main practical solution to many of the potential problems associated with AI development is democratization. If everyone has access to AI developer tools and can build their own AI-based solutions, no one can monopolize the benefits, or the potential pitfalls, of artificial intelligence. The book suggests democratization of AI may not be enough, however, governments and other stakeholders must be actively involved….

Microsoft, in an effort to stave off reactionary action by governments, ethicists, and other stakeholders proposes that technologists contemplate and discuss these disruptions now, while the AI technology is in its nascent stages and before the unethical and unscrupulous among us do irrevocable damage to this potential profitable endeavor. That is probably very good advice, because the implementation of AI carries with it the potential for unprecedented harm, if used for malevolent purposes.

h/t @FullArtIntel