Artificial intelligence (AI) should be treated with the same scrutiny as medication and warn users about potential “undesirable side effects”, according to an AI ethics expert.
Maria Luciana Axente, PwC UK’s Responsible AI and AI for Good lead, made the statement during a discussion on the second day of the newly-launched AI Festival, adding that data scientists should respond to an ethical code just like medical practitioners.
When quizzed by BT's head of AI and Data Science Research, Detlef Nauck, about whether she thinks AI systems should be regulated like medicines that come “with a description of undesirable side effects”, Axente replied: “Of course, no doubt about it.”
"We have to move in that direction,” she said. “Because we started using AI in so many different domains of life that have a significant impact on people's lives.”
However, Axente added that, although she has heard arguments for creating an agency that would regulate the use of AI in a similar way to how the US Food and Drug Administration aims to protect public health, she believes that it might be worth focusing on existing institutions.
“Let's see what we can be doing on this part of the pond, and how can we leverage some of the institutions we already have, rather than creating new ones – but they will have to go in that direction, especially for high-risk application [of AI],” she said.
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She referenced the European Commission’s plans to revise EU laws on the use of AI, with new regulations “set to come in April”.
“I think [they] will allow us to at least separate the use cases that need more attention and more governance from the ones that we can be a little bit more relaxed,” she said.
Axente’s comments come as Facebook’s head of hardware confirmed that the tech giant is considering using facial recognition technology for its upcoming smart glasses, which are set to be released later this year.
Facial recognition has been the subject of a petition launched last week by a coalition of privacy advocates, who are pressuring EU regulators to take advantage of its upcoming revision of AI laws and ban the use of biometric mass surveillance tools.
