There's No Such Thing As 'Ethical A.I.'

Artificial intelligence should treat all people fairly, empower everyone, perform reliably and safely, be understandable, be secure and respect privacy, and have algorithmic accountability. It should be aligned with existing human values, be explainable, be fair, and respect user data rights. It should be used for socially beneficial purposes, and always remain under meaningful human control. These are some of the high-level headings under which Microsoft, IBM, and Google-owned DeepMind respectively set out their ethical principles for the development and deployment of A.I. They're also, pretty much by definition, A Good Thing. Anything that insists upon technology's weighty real-world repercussions -- and its creators' responsibilities towards these -- is surely welcome in an age when automated systems are implicated in every facet of human existence.