Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Cecilia Lascialfari, Italian Representative for Artivive, Expert Generalist, Creative Strategist Technologist, Founder of ARea6DoF , her thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

AI has come to the mainstream very fast. It is very easy to use tools that use AI. Social networks themselves have implemented AI. There are still many people who don't realize the privacy implications. I believe that the most difficult thing to do is to make the mainstream understand what Artificial Intelligence means.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Andreas Hauser, CEO Digital Service at TÜV SÜD, his thoughts on the future of AI.

If you could solve any global problem in the world with AI, what would it be and why?

If I could harness AI to address any global challenge, I would focus on ensuring universal access to knowledge. I believe that well-informed societies make the most prudent decisions. By granting everyone access to knowledge, we can empower individuals and communities to effectively combat big challenges, such as climate change, safeguard the planet, and uphold human dignity as an untouchable principle. AI can play a crucial role in this endeavour because it can disseminate information widely. Nevertheless, any AI system must adhere to ethical standards to guarantee the responsible and equitable distribution of knowledge for the greater benefit of humanity.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most powerful and versatile technologies of our time, playing a crucial role in determining the future competitiveness of industries and organisations. While being an early adopter of AI is becoming increasingly important, organisations must also prioritise a proper implementation mitigating potential risks. 

“We must ensure that AI applications are safe, secure, reliable, and meet ethical principles,” said Dr. Andreas Hauser, CEO of Digital Service at TÜV SÜD. Not only for scalability but also for compliance reasons. The European Union (EU) will take a leading role here in regulating the ethical use of AI with the introduction of the AI Act, the first comprehensive law on AI by a major regulator. “Specific applications, such as mass surveillance or manipulative applications, will be simply forbidden,” Hauser added.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Ana Ilievska, Former Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer, Stanford University / Senior Research Fellow, Center for Science and Thought, Bonn University, her thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

Of course, non-biased, fair, and democratic AI should be the priority of the AI community. However, an additional, more insidious challenge that impacts everyone in possession of a WiFi connection is human-machine cognitive distribution. We need to investigate how working with AI impacts our mental processes of decision making, planning, and thinking in general so that we can ensure that future generations maintain a robust sense of autonomy in critical thinking and judgment.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Thomas Lidy, Senior Director, AI & Data Science, Utopia Music, his thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

As an AI community, we have to respect privacy and ownership of data when it comes to training AI systems with said data. We have to find a fair balance between the scale of data needed for current AI systems and data privacy and ownership. We also need to apply careful ethical measures with regards to avoiding bias in AI systems.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Huub Janssen, Chair of Dutch and of European Working Group of Competent Authorities on AI, Dutch Authority on Digital Infrastructure, his thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

Generative AI will gain more and more capabilities. We need more insight into the new capabilities and the societal risks involved, in order for governments to act and protect public interest.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Irina Mirkina, AI Lead, Office of Innovation, UNICEF, her thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

One of the main challenges is the complexity of AI development across borders and across the global value chains. Data collected in one country may be used, labelled, processed in other countries - and it's hard to ensure the data privacy and ethical AI development if AI laws in all those countries are different. Many extremely popular products (including generative AI systems) have been accused of disregarding human rights. Examples include using digital sweatshops with poor working conditions for data labelling and violating the creators' right to work. If such questionable practices happen at one end of a global value chain while the value is extracted at the other end, regulating AI on a global scale becomes extremely challenging.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Annelore Verhagen, Economist, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, her thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

Ensuring responsible and ethical AI deployment requires a framework for how to work with AI, complemented by concrete, actionable and enforceable implementation plans. One of the critical challenges in this context is the risk of a fragmentation of efforts, which could unnecessarily harm innovation and create regulatory gaps. Fostering international collaboration is essential for mitigating this challenge effectively.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Andreea Munteanu, Product Manager, Canonical, her thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

AI world needs to better define guidance on how to build AI projects that are ethical and responsible. Also, the community could explore more the option of enabling sustainable AI.

Ahead of World Summit AI (11th-12th October 2023, Taets Art & Event Park, Amsterdam), we asked Giovanni Leoni, Head of Business Strategy & Development, Credo AI, his thoughts on the future of AI.

As an expert in the field, what critical challenges do you believe the AI community needs to address to ensure responsible & and ethical AI deployment?

One of the most critical challenges that the AI community needs to address is the delicate balance between promoting the adoption of AI technology while ensuring responsible and ethical AI deployment. It’s not EITHER/OR type of situation, but rather an AND!

Our focus should be on designing AI systems, from their inception to deployment and ongoing monitoring, with responsible and ethical considerations at the forefront. This means that responsible and ethical AI should not be an afterthought but rather woven into the very fabric of AI development and implementation.

Achieving this balance is vital for the long-term sustainability and positive impact of AI on society.
Furthermore, enabling AI adoption according to the ambition of responsible and ethical coming through regulations, such as the EU AI Act is critical. Even more now, with the EU AI Act just around the corner, this spans more than just compliance, but also a matter of operationalizing ethical and responsible AI at scale in line with the high-level expert groups' guidelines on trustworthy AI.