On September 27, 2018 at Riga, a roundtable on Global Governance for Information Integrity hosted by the WLA-CdM took place at the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Latvia. Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, CEO of BGF and Director of MDI, introduced AIWS Initiative and AI-Government at this event.
According Director Nguyen Anh Tuan, AI may be a good solution to prevent disinformation – a type of untrue communication that is purposefully spread and represented as truth to elicit some response that serves the perpetrator’s purpose. The AIWS and the AI-Government are initiatives of MDI, aiming to create a society in which humans and AI citizens can co-exist peacefully, and AI will be used for good purposes under the strict control.
Global Governance for Information Integrity Roundtable focused on the first pathway to global action: protecting the integrity of political information through global governance. A discussion between global political leaders and international experts is needed to address the issue of fake news in the information space. In the era of thriving communication, social media has had a huge influence on politics. It brought about many opportunities as well as challenges concerning transparency and accountability of political information.
In the new century, people have more and more great innovations that can change the history of humanity, including the most brilliant inventions. And when it comes to intelligence, we will think of AI as the “hottest” trend of technology in the world in recent years.
AI or artificial intelligence is understood simply as the intelligence of machines created by humans. This intelligence can think and learn as human intelligence, process data at a broader, more systematic, more scientific level and faster than humans. But can AI completely replace humans?
Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of The Michael Dukakis Institute for Leadership and Innovation (MDI), Founder and Editor-in-Chief of VietNamNet Newspaper, confirmed that in the “Coffee Morning” show of a popular Vietnamese television channel – VTV3 – that AI and robots cannot replace humans.
Although AI is increasingly being used in many fields and activities in daily life, humans are still irreplaceable, especially in the field of social management.
The AI-Government, an initiative launched by the MDI in June 2018, will help manage AI to serve citizens more intelligently, more automatically and more responsibly. The AI-Government is a government in which AI is widely and thoroughly applied in the management, decision making and policy making process of governing bodies rather than in just public services (human contact, streamlined payroll system, etc.).
For example, given the US-China trade war, the government of both countries needs to make the smartest decisions. Given the full data system, AI’s intelligent and optimized algorithms will recommend smart, convincing decisions. Furthermore, AI can help us make decisions very quickly.
But it is important that AI remains a tool, an “effective assistant” offering suggestions to people while people are the ones who will consider and make final decisions. Therefore, when using AI, human intelligence needs to be one level higher. Many people think that when there are robots, they will have nothing to do anymore. On the contrary, new and more demanding jobs will open up.
It is worth mentioning that when we put AI into application, we recognize that people have many good traits but also morally ambiguous traits, while AI is very honest. In Vietnam, Luu Quang Vu’s play Green Chrysanthemum on Marsh is a typical example: Nearly 40 years ago, Luu Quang Vu thought about robots that could help people look back and adjust themselves so that they became more honest and more warm-hearted. And so, humanity will need a standard to manage and control AI in general.
That is why the MDI developed the AI World Society Initiative (AIWS Initiative), published on November 29, 2017. According to Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, the basic purpose of this initiative is to establish a society with the best and most effective AI application, bringing good to humans.
To illustrate the need for this, he also reiterated the fact that cyber security is a “headache” to the world today. As we did not anticipate the development of the Internet and computers, we have left “holes” that are difficult to overcome. For AI, although the same problem has not been officially declared, we still need to prepare in advance; otherwise, as Prof. Stephen Hawking said, such “holes” would be a threat to humanity in the future.
Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan also affirmed that the MDI and its associates who are experts from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), etc. agree to contribute their research, ideas, or initiatives on AIWS and AI-Government to serve humanity, creating a good society where AI is not harmful to humans.
While critics argued that Google was stepping closer to the “business of war” due to a contract with the US Defense Department, the company has responded by banning development for AI that could be used for weapons.
As AI becomes more and more powerful, Google’s leaders have shown their concerns by preventing the creation of AI software which can be used for weapons. The action is considered to set a new ethical guideline to technology companies around the world seeking for superiority in self-driving cars, automated assistants, robotics and military AI.
According to the Independent, to prevent AI from becoming harmful for international law and human rights, Google asserted that the company will not persist in developing AI. The Independent states, however, that cybersecurity, training, veterans’ health care, search and rescue, and military recruitment are some spheres in which Google is going to cooperate with governments.
It is unclear how the company would seek to follow its rules under the principle. Seven core tenets for AI application are referenced by chief executive Sundar Pichai, consisting of being socially beneficial, being built and tested for safety, and avoiding creating or reinforcing unfair bias. The company is to evaluate projects by examining how closely the technology developed can be adapted to harmful use.
In fact, Google’s Web tools are largely developed based on the use of AI, such as image searching or automatic translation. There are possibilities that the tools themselves could easily violate the ethical principles. For example, users of Google Duplex can use it to mimic someone’s voice over the phone to make dinner reservations.
However, the Pentagon’s technological researchers and engineers say other contractors will still compete to help develop technology for the military and national defense. According to John Everett, Deputy Director of Information Innovation Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, organizations are free to choose to participate in the AI exploration.
AI should be used for good purposes. Toward this aim, MDI has built the AIWS Initiative to establish a society with the best and most effective AI application, bringing the best to humans.
On October 23, 2018, the event of AI, Ethics, and Human rights will be held by the Public Voice Coalition in Brussels, Belgium. Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of MDI and CEO of BGF, will attend and talk about AIWS and AI-Government Initiative.
In the modern world, AI is developing at such an unprecedented speed and technology has a massive effect on our lives and the lives of professionals in politics, science, etc. To be aware of risks, The Public Voice Coalition is hosting an event – an opportunity to review the impact of AI on legal frameworks to protect consumers, competition and human rights and figure out the connection between ethics and regulations for AI and possible solutions to these issues.
In the event, the content of the conference will mainly be delivered by two keynote speakers: Anita Allen, Vice Provost for Faculty and Henry R. Silverman, Professor of Law and Philosophy at University of Pennsylvania Law School. In addition, some other innovative leaders will be present in the event including Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of MDI and CEO of BGF.
On August 29, 2018 Google launched a feature for Google Go, which uses AI to read out loud articles in up to 28 different languages.
It is only a lightweight app for consumers in emerging markets as Google recently expanded Google Go in the past December to India and Indonesia and other regions including sub-Saharan Africa. The new feature is extremely useful in developing their market for two reasons:
It increases Google Go’s value for users that rely on old-school network as this application can be optimized to work with 2G networks and later. According to GSMA, 96% of mobile connections in sub- Saharan Africa were 2G or 3G.
It creates accessibility for consumers who would rather not type or read text.
This latest update is considered a major step in Google’s effort to develop voice technology, giving Google a momentum to reach the next billion online users. But we certainly need specific standards to control the development of AI-based technologies. That is why MDI developed ethical frameworks and AI standards for AI World Society with other scholars and experts from Harvard University, MIT, Hitachi, Google, etc.
