This Agency Wants to Figure Out Exactly How Much You Trust AI

The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a federal agency best known for measuring things like time or the number of photons that pass through a chicken. Now NIST wants to put a number on a person's trust in artificial intelligence. Trust is part of how we judge the potential for danger, and it's an important factor in the adoption of AI. As AI takes on more and more complicated tasks, officials at NIST say, trust is an essential part of the evolving relationship between people and machines. In a research paper, creators of the attempt to quantify user trust in AI say they want to help businesses and developers who deploy AI systems make informed decisions and identify areas where people don't trust AI.