Moratoria are unrealistic and regulation takes time to develop. Public-private partnerships necessary to build technologies safely and focus on the greatest of society’s challenges require months, if not years, to take shape, in part because companies do not decide to collaborate easily or quickly.
While those approaches will certainly be necessary to ensure AI systems are designed and built to be safe, they should be augmented by careful, principled, and practical technology development by enterprises seeking to make good on the promise of the technology. People say they want technology responsibly deployed, but it seems to never work out that way, in part because ethical technology starts with the design and development of technologies, not just their implementation.
From our experiences working in companies and our research, we have outlined a roadmap with stages that IT leaders can follow even before regulation is developed. From this roadmap, we offer five best practices for the development of ethical and humane technology, to provide both a set of tools for people working inside companies and the agency that people need to develop technology ethically, without waiting for regulation.
