CSIRO leads on responsible AI

The CSIRO’s National AI Centre has released a new report to advise small businesses on use of AI in line with legal, ethical, and social considerations.

The CSIRO’s National AI Centre has released a new report to advise small businesses on use of AI in line with legal, ethical, and social considerations. Picture: Lukas Coch / AAP

The National AI Centre, housed in the CSIRO, has released a new report to advise small businesses about the uptake and rollout of AI in their operations in a responsible way.

The document is intended to support Australian businesses – especially smaller ones – to implement AI into their business practices in line with the government’s eight AI ethics principles.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic welcomed the report, saying it “should be read by all businesses”.

“It gives them practical steps to implement the Australian Government’s AI ethics principles.

“Australia was one of the first countries to adopt AI ethical principles and I back them 100 percent.”

Studies have shown that while there is widespread business enthusiasm for AI, there is little understanding of regulatory and ethical responsibilities.

“We’ve written this report with the National AI Centre specifically to help organisations, particularly smaller companies, who want to build AI systems responsibly but just don’t know where to start,” said Bill Simpson-Young, chief executive of the Gradient Institute, which wrote the report.

“Even though there aren’t specific AI regulations now, there are lots of laws that apply to AI systems,” he said.

“It’s very easy for a company building an AI system to inadvertently discriminate. It’s possible for an organisation to do things that are illegal.

“You really have to be careful in the design of the system, in the way it’s operated, in the way it’s monitored.”

The report comes in the middle of the government’s eight-week consultation period into AI regulation.

National AI Centre director Stela Solar said there had been growing demand for business guidance on AI rollout.

“June to October last year, the National AI Centre had a listening tour and we met with 135 organisations, and they were all very unanimous in their desire to do AI well, to do AI responsibly,” she said.