The National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School has launched a new research center called the Centre on AI Technology for Humankind (AiTH).

Founded and headed by Professor David De Cremer, Provost’s Chair in the Department of Management and Organisation at NUS Business School, AiTH aims to promote a human-centered mindset in the use of AI by researching the areas of leadership and authority, augmentation of human capital, as well as trust and ethics.

“You still need people to define the ultimate purpose of AI. How we use it, what kind of values. I see a shift towards the cooperation of humans and AI. In business, we are starting to see AI as a new coworker. The end-user of technology is always humans; it’s not technology for use by technology,” explained Prof De Cremer in a video media briefing with CDOTrends.

He emphasized that the center will not design the technology but will serve as a thought leader on the consequences around AI, ranging from its business value, establishing a business case, and identifying the most optimal model for use.

The research projects will seek to answer questions such as how AI-empowered business models should be employed in trustworthy and ethical ways; how AI can be used to enhance human well-being; and what the enhanced relationship between man and machine means for the future of work specifically, and the development of future society more generally.

AiTH will hence bring researchers, thought- and business leaders together to nurture an intellectual and value-driven ecosystem to ensure new AI technologies that will improve the human condition.

“AI is touted as the new hero of society that may match or even surpass human intelligence in the future. However, we should examine AI development in the context of co-creation with humans. We hope to develop insights that will inform policymakers, the industry, and the public on how AI technologies can be advanced while still maintaining a focus on humans,” said Prof De Cremer.

“We want to be a voice based on evidence. To collaborate with governments, academia, and the private sector,” he summed up.

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The world is still making sense of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – particularly how they fit in with humankind and working culture. Those that know this relationship best are those that work closely with AI technologies as part of their job.  

DataRobot is one such company born out of the rise of artificial intelligence. The company launched in 2012 and over eight years, it created an enterprise AI platform that enables organisations to understand and leverage AIs for their business needs.

DataRobot works closely with partners including enterprise data platform provider Snowflake to help customers use AI to accelerate their data-to-value times. 

“A hundred years ago, Henry Ford made motor vehicles available to the masses via standardisation and the production line. Now, DataRobot makes AIs available to ordinary businesses via standardisation and an automated production line,” says DataRobot’s VP of AI strategy, Colin Priest.

“We make those AIs trustworthy so that they share your values, are intuitive to understand, and work as planned.”

Priest was recently in Australia as a presenter for the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit in Sydney. He advises organisations on AI strategy, AI governance, AI ethics, and organisational change.

Priest says that much of his work is about how humans and AI can work together, so with that in mind, Techday chatted with him about that very concept.

Let’s start with a basic definition for those who may have seen the buzzwords but may not properly understand what AI is.

“Artificial intelligence is when a computer system learns to make decisions or perform a task, that previously required human intelligence,” says Priest.

Another common belief about AI as a whole is that it is out to replace everybody’s jobs.

“Too much of people’s ideas about AI are based upon science fiction, whether that be utopian and dystopian, but these stories are no more like reality than a superhero movie,” says Priest.
AIs won’t replace humans. They will just free us up to be more human. AIs are computer systems, and as such, they are best at repetitive tasks, mathematics, data manipulation, and parallel processing.”

“Humans are much better than AIs at communication and engagement, context and general knowledge, creativity, empathy, and ethics. Furthermore, these are the tasks that humans love to do. So it makes sense for AIs to automate the inhuman tasks, and humans focus on the human tasks.” 

He adds that decision-making involves a combination of human skills and AI skills. As such, AIs will augment human skills, rather than replace them.

Priest’s Gartner presentation explained some of the roles that humans must play in AI governance, as well as how humans fit into AI’s ultimate success. 

He says there are five steps to successful AI:
1) Automate inhuman tasks
2) Watch out for human and organisational blockers
3) Empower business staff in AI transformation
4) AI Must Be Trustworthy
5) Technology + Empowered People + AI Culture = AI Success

Bearing all of this in mind, we asked if people and businesses are ready for AIs in all of their different forms and applications.

“There is a lot of hype and fear-mongering. It’s no wonder that many people aren’t prepared for the reality of AI. For example, a person attending one of my presentations asked me whether in the future we will have to negotiate with an AI to get it to do its job,” Priest says.

“AIs are just computer systems that exist to be tools of humans – they exist to do what we tell them to do, no different from your phone or your car. In the past two decades, we quickly adapted to the internet and smartphones, and we will do the same with AIs.”

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The adoption of artificial intelligence in many industries has been regarded by some as a threat to low-skilled workers, as it will drastically cut down reliance on the human workforce.

Besides unemployment, there are also concerns about rising economic inequality caused by AI-driven companies. With fewer employees, these companies would gain a disproportionate advantage than most conventional companies that still depend on normal shift-based systems.

AI bots, for example, have achieved the capability to interact with humans and build relationships through conversations.

This would eventually enable these bots to affect human behaviour and possibly trigger certain actions. Such intelligent machines, however, are not immune to mistakes and confusion and can be manipulated to fulfil certain ends.

Also, Al cannot be totally expected to be fair and neutral, since it is dependent on human programmers who have their own interests and preferences.

Recent developments have unveiled AI’s ability to recreate image, imitate voice and even generate fake videos of a person, which could be used for fraud. At this level, even voice recognition software can no longer identify such fraud.

Also, its ability to collect huge amount of data without consent, and put humans under surveillance can be a threat to privacy.

Even in cases where AI could potentially eradicate disease or disasters, its approach and method could still cause undesirable consequences that humans may not approve of.

AI raises great security concerns, especially in the form of autonomous cyber-attacks. Even though AI is currently under human control, the growing rate of AI’s ingenuity is exponential. AI experts fear that it might surpass human intelligence and potentially lead to a technological singularity which then becomes a threat to humanity.

Therefore, the problem now is how to programme an AI with morals. The previous “Laws of Robotics”, introduced by Isaac Asimov, would not be enough since there are more tricky questions about what counts as ethical.

It will be difficult to answer questions such as, “Should a self-driving car just hit another person to save the driver?” or “Is it allowed to programme military robots to kill a terrorist?” or “Should a trading bot inform everyone of a predicted disaster, or just keep it a secret?”.

An AI framework that can take into account human desires, goals, preferences and ethical codes is indispensable. Currently, the AI framework that adopts “reinforcement learning” is extensively studied and developed by some researchers to ensure that artificial agents act ethically.

More work is still in progress to improve this technology of ethics.

Besides, to ensure that the rise of AI in all industries is advantageous, we need to have an ethical code for the AI that does not compromise humankind’s potential and its survival.

Recently, the United Kingdom government published a report —AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?—in which five core principles are outlined. The first principle proposed that AI should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity. The second dictates that AI operates within parameters of intelligibility and fairness. Third, AI should not be used to lessen the privacy or data right of individuals, families or communities. Fourth, all people should have the right to be educated and flourish alongside artificial intelligence. The fifth principle opposes the use of AI as killer robots with the autonomy to hurt, destroy or deceive humans.

The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, for instance, has launched a crowd-sourced global treatise entitled, “Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritising Human Wellbeing with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems”.

The report takes into account various well-established “classical ethics”, including religious-and-culture-based ethical systems.

As the global community continues to work together on the ethics of AI, there are still vast opportunities to offer ethical inputs, including ethical principles based on Islamic teachings.

This is in line with Islam’s encouragement for its believers to convey beneficial messages, including to share its ethical principles with society.

In Islam, ethics or akhlak (virtuous character traits) in Arabic, is sometimes employed interchangeably in the Arabic language with adab, which means the manner, attitude, behaviour, and etiquette of putting things in their proper places. Islamic ethics cover all the legal concepts ranging from syariah (Islamic law), fiqh ( jurisprudence), qanun (ordinance), and ‘urf (customary practices).

Adopting and applying moral values based on the Islamic ethical concept or applied Islamic ethics could be a way to address various issues in today’s societies.

At the same time, this approach is in line with the higher objectives of syariah (maqasid alsyariah) that is aimed at conserving human benefit by the protection of human values, including faith (hifz al-din), life (hifz alnafs), lineage (hifz al-nasl), intellect (hifz al-‘aql), and property (hifz al-mal). This approach could be very helpful to address contemporary issues, including those related to the rise of AI and intelligent robots.

As there are so many ethical questions in the age of AI, we need to discuss and address the issues by taking into account various perspectives from different disciplines.

It is hoped that, through this approach, both scientists and religious scholars would work together to address all the issues in harmony, and put an end to the existing practice of separation where scientists and religious scholars operate in two separate universes.

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