Amazon Calls for Development of Global Rules for Responsible AI

A year after leading American Big Tech companies agreed to the Biden administration’s voluntary commitments to manage the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), Amazon said there is a need for global alignment on responsible AI measures.

“It’s now very clear we can have rules that protect against risks, while also ensuring we don’t hinder innovation,” David Zapolsky, senior vice president, global public policy and general counsel at Amazon, said in a Monday (July 22) article posted on the company’s website. “But we still need to secure global alignment on responsible AI measures to protect U.S. economic prosperity and security.”

One way to accomplish this approach to responsible AI is for all companies in the AI field to commit to a responsible deployment of the technology, Zapolsky said. This could include measures like one Amazon has taken: embedding invisible watermarks into its tool that enables users to generate images, in order to reduce the spread of disinformation.

In addition, all companies should be transparent about how they are developing and deploying AI, Zapolsky said. In the case of Amazon, the firm has created AI Service Cards that tell Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers the limitations of its AI services, about responsible AI best practices and about how they can build AI applications safely.

Another key to responsible AI is collaboration and information sharing among companies and governments, Zapolsky said. Here, Zapolsky pointed to the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium, which was established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to advance research and measurement for AI safety.

“For the U.S. and our allies to unlock the benefits of AI while minimizing its risks, we must continue to work together to establish AI guardrails that are consistent with democratic values, secure economic prosperity and security, ensure global interoperability, promote competition, and enhance safe and responsible innovation,” Zapolsky said.

On July 21, 2023, the White House said that Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI made voluntary commitments to help move toward safe, secure and transparent development of AI technology.

These commitments include a range of measures designed to better understand the risks and ethical implications of AI while providing greater transparency and restricting the potential for misuse.