Microsoft puts trust in FATE to keep AI safe

The system is intended to guide creation of harmless artificial intelligence systems

The future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be guided by destiny, according to a senior Microsoft executive speaking at Gitex in Dubai yesterday.

Or rather, FATE.

FATE is Microsoft’s controlling mantra when dealing with AI, and stands for fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics.

Many prominent public figures, including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, have called for greater caution when developing artificial intelligence. Musk called the technology more dangerous “than nuclear warheads.”

In response to the concerns surrounding the technology, Microsoft developed its own strategy for ensuring that AI would never be weaponised or used inappropriately. “We looked at the importance of being strong in our values,” said Ali Dalloul, Microsoft’s general manager for AI, “so we have a framework around how AI needs to be governed.”

First of all, Dalloul said, the technology needs to be fair. He uses the example of applying for a bank loan, and having your credit worthiness judged by an AI algorithm. “Now, if there’s bias in that data, we have a real problem,” he said. “The biased humans who have programmed that [algorithm] are also going to infect it … So it has to be really fair.”

AI requires massive amounts of data in order to learn and function optimally, increasing the burden on customers to hand over much of this typically personal information.

Dalloul said ethics must make up the backbone of any AI system. “We believe privacy is a human right, we fundamentally respect every law in every country we operate,” he said.