PM should make ethics a priority at AI Safety Summit, say tech professionals

By Peter Davison

28 September 2023

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Prime minister Rishi Sunak should put ethics high on the global agenda when the UK hosts the AI Safety Summit this autumn, according to research by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

The majority (88 per cent) of experts surveyed by Swindon-headquartered BCS ahead of the Bletchley Park meeting said the UK should take an international lead on ethical standards in AI.

Most IT professionals (82 per cent) agreed that organisations should be required to publish ethical policies on their use of AI and other high-stakes technologies.

Nearly all (90 per cent) said a company’s reputation for ethical use of technology was key when deciding to work for them or partner with them.

And 19 per cent of respondents to the BCS survey said they had faced an ethical challenge in their work over the past year.

A majority (81 per cent) said it was vital that technologists should be able to demonstrate their ethical credentials through recognised professional standards.

Tech professionals said they would like to see ethical AI standards implemented most quickly across the health and care sector.

Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) selected that option, which was followed by defence (16 per cent), criminal justice and banking (both 13 per cent) and education (12 per cent).

Gillian Arnold, president of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT said: “Hosting the AI safety Summit is the UK’s opportunity to put together a global consensus on ethical use of digital technologies.

“That includes asking organisations to publish ethical policies on how they create and use tech.

"It also means having safe whistle-blowing channels for experts working on areas like AI, if they feel they’re being asked to work in a way that compromises their professional standards or discriminates against a section of society.

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“The public needs to have confidence that AI is being created by diverse, ethical teams as it continues to weave itself into our life and work.

"Agreeing global standards of responsible computing is one way of building that trust.”

Earlier this year, an open letter from BCS encouraging leaders to see AI as a force for good and not an existential threat, was signed by 1,300 experts.

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.