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- [Director] And three, two, one, action.
- At Microsoft, we know that when you create technologies
that have the potential to change the world,
you also have a responsibility to ensure
that those technologies are used for good,
and that requires thoughtful and deliberate work.
AI systems are becoming more and more a part of our lives,
but our laws are lagging behind.
They have not yet caught up
with the unique risks of AI systems and society's needs.
So in the absence of clear policies and regulations,
companies must chart their own course
to define the steps needed to develop
and deploy AI systems responsibly,
and that's exactly
what the Microsoft Responsible AI Standard does.
It guides how we design, build, and test AI systems
so that they can uphold our principles
and earn people's trust.
We introduced our first Responsible AI Standard in 2019.
It was grounded in our six core principles:
fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security,
inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.
When we published the first version,
we knew that we were right at the very beginning
of our journey of moving from principles to practices.
- We heard from our product teams
that principles were great but not enough.
The guidance wasn't easily actionable.
As an engineer, I understood the very real challenges
of those being tasked with building innovative AI solutions
for a wide range of customers.
- There are so many thorny challenges
when it comes to developing
and deploying AI systems responsibly.
For example, AI has the potential
to exacerbate existing societal inequities
and even to create new ones.
Researchers are at the forefront of uncovering
and understanding these challenges,
so incorporating their perspectives
into the standard was essential.
We deployed our hub-and-spoke governance model
to move the process forward.
This model brings together policy leads, product teams,
and researchers so the core people needed to create
and carry out actionable guidance.
- Early in the process, we were stuck.
We had started out trying to identify all
of the possible harms we wanted to avoid.
Then we had an ah-ha moment.
Instead of focusing only
on the hands we were trying to avoid,
what if we also shun a light
on the societal goals we were trying to achieve?
- Once we settled on this goal-oriented approach
to updating the standard,
we divided into smaller groups, one per principle,
to develop actionable guidance.
This involved identifying the requirements necessary
to meeting our goals,
as well as the tools and resources
that could be used to meet those requirements.
This was challenging work,
and we had a lot of factors to weigh.
We needed to strike the right balance
of providing clear guardrails
while allowing for new types of AI systems.
We also needed our guidance
to reflect state-of-the-art research on responsible AI
while making sure our product teams weren't left struggling.
- What we started to find
was repeatable, predictable patterns.
We used these patterns
to guide the requirements in the standard
and to help us identify tools and resources
that would be usable by the people tasked
with building AI systems.
We also recognized
that there were particularly sensitive uses of AI
that would always require expert guidance.
One example is Custom Neural Voice.
AI has made great leaps
when it comes to replicating someone's voice,
but it's easy to see how this technology could be misused.
- Our playbook needs to work
across a large range of AI systems,
and we want it to be durable
as the practice of responsible AI matures.
Around the world, we are also seeing more
and more policy proposals to better govern AI.
While we're proud of how far we've come at Microsoft,
our updated Responsible AI Standard is just one step
on our journey.
AI will continue to evolve,
and as it's put to novel uses,
we'll need to be able to adapt quickly,
be open to constant feedback,
and have the humility to admit
when we fall short of our goals.
- We look forward to learning
alongside our partners and customers
as we strive to build a world
where AI-powered innovations help everyone
on the planet to achieve more.
- Our goal is to build AI systems
that can benefit everyone and earn their trust.
The Responsible AI Standard gets us closer
to achieving that goal.
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