Ride the Lightning

Defense Innovation Board Recommends AI Ethical Guidelines

November 4, 2019

I was very interested to read a November 1st article from the US Department of Defense reporting that the Defense Innovation Board has recommended ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence.

For those who may not know, the Defense Innovation Board is an independent federal advisory committee. Its members are leaders in AI and related fields from around the United States, working in industry, academia and think tanks. The purpose of their work is to conduct extensive studies on AI and other research topics and present their findings to DOD leaders to aid in their decisions.

Within the framework of the National Defense Strategy, which supports the research and use of artificial intelligence as a warfighting tool, the Defense Department's AI Strategy calls for DOD to take the lead in developing ethical AI guidelines.

In July 2018, DOD leadership tasked the Defense Innovation Board to propose a set of ethics principles for consideration. Since then, the DIB has conducted an extensive study that included numerous discussions with experts in industry, academia and the private sector. The board led multiple public listening sessions, interviewed more than 100 stakeholders and held monthly meetings of an informal DOD working group in which representatives of partner nations also participated. The board also conducted two practical exercises with leaders and subject matter experts from DOD, the intelligence community and academia.

The Board met on October 31^st and voted unanimously to recommend the following AI ethics principles.

Responsible

Human beings should exercise appropriate levels of judgment and remain responsible for the development, deployment, use and outcomes of DOD AI systems.

Equitable

DOD should take deliberate steps to avoid unintended bias in the development and deployment of combat or noncombat AI systems that would inadvertently cause harm to persons.

Traceable

DOD's AI engineering discipline should be sufficiently advanced such that technical experts possess an appropriate understanding of the technology, development processes and operational methods of its AI systems, including transparent and auditable methodologies, data sources, and design procedure and documentation.

Reliable

DOD AI systems should have an explicit, well-defined domain of use, and the safety, security and robustness of such systems should be tested and assured across their entire life cycle within that domain of use.

Governable

DOD AI systems should be designed and engineered to fulfill their intended function while possessing the ability to detect and avoid unintended harm or disruption, and for human or automated disengagement or deactivation of deployed systems that demonstrate unintended escalatory or other behavior.

Defense Innovation Board members made clear that certain aspects of how DOD might develop and deploy AI already are covered by the department's ethics frameworks, which are based on the U.S. Constitution, Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the Law of War, existing international treaties and longstanding DOD norms and values.

Their proposed principles, the board's members explained, are meant to address only new ethical AI questions that DOD's existing ethics framework may not cover.

"The valuable insights from the DIB are the product of 15 months of outreach to commercial industry, the government, academia and the American public," said Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. "Jack" Shanahan, director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. "The DIB's recommendations will help enhance the DOD's commitment to upholding the highest ethical standards as outlined in the DOD AI Strategy, while embracing the U.S. military's strong history of applying rigorous testing and fielding standards for technology innovations."

This is a salutary effort to manage the development of AI in an ethical way. How these principles will be implemented remain a question. AI has an uncanny way of going awry. Remember Twitter's experiment with the chatbot Tay? My fear is that one day we will find ourselves uttering a famous quote from Admiral Josh Painter (brilliantly played by Fred Thompson) in the movie Red October: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it."

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
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