Google tackles responsible AI through new Digital Futures Project

Google has launched a Digital Futures Project to address opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Project will support researchers and foster debate on public policy solutions to promote responsible AI development.

“AI has the potential to make our lives easier and address some of society’s most complex challenges. But it also raises questions about fairness, bias, misinformation, security and the future of work,” said Google in the blog post.

A £16 million ($20 million) fund will be established as part of the Digital Futures Project. It will provide grants to global think tanks and academic institutions.

The fund is also set to support independent thinkers who will explore pressing issues like AI’s influence on global security, impacts on labour and the economon, and governance structures in promoting responsible AI innovation.

“Answering these questions will require deep collaboration among industry, academia, governments and civil society,” added the blog post.

Inaugural grantees of the Digital Futures Fund include:

• The Aspen Institute
• Brookings Institution
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• The Centre for a New American Security
• The Centre for Strategic and International Studies
• The Institute for Security and Technology
• Leadership Conference Education Fund
• MIT Work of the Future
• R Street Institute
• SeedAI.

In 2018, Google published a set of AI Principles. These Principles aimed to guide their work. A governance team enforced these principles through rigorous system reviews.

But Google acknowledged in its blog post that getting AI right will take more than any one company alone.

The company recently joined forces with some of the world’s top tech giants to form the Frontier Model Forum. The Forum’s key focus is to ensure the safe and responsible development of AI models.

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