“New Crew on a Mission: Injecting Ethics into AI Data Licensing”
“A New Group Is Trying to Make AI Data Licensing Ethical”
“Some companies promise their data users they won’t get collection letters from lawyers; others ask AI developers to promise they won’t use data to create weapons systems or in surveillance.” Apparently, terms like these are essential in the world of “Aggregated Datasets”, where they’re as capricious as a summer breeze, oftentimes subject to the ever-fluctuating personal mood of the data provider.
Indeed – it’s a veritable Wild West of licensing agreements and legalese. Few have braved the tumultuous world of datasets and emerged unscathed, until now that is. Introducing the Dataset Providers Alliance, a recent collaboration aiming to introduce a tinge of sanity into this lawless domain. They have set out to construct a set of standardized licensing terms, aiming not only to provide a respite from loopholes and ‘gotchas’, but also to embed ethical considerations woven into the licensing process.
It’s not just about providing clarity, it’s more about ensuring the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI). A prime example is the highly contentious issue of deepfakes – AI-generated, eerily real-life misrepresentations, wouldn’t it be cosy to know this data won’t wind up in such manipulative uses? It’s high time that these deepfake desperados that often play fast and loose with our data had some rules to follow.
The Dataset Providers Alliance seeks to impose ethical guidelines for how AI uses data – no weaponry, no mass surveillance, and certainly no unsolicited face swapping. Hopefully, these guidelines will imply refined use of data, where AI is for the assistance and well-being of humanity, not for its detriment.
In the grand scheme of things, the Alliance might come off as a joint Hydra’s head in the unregulated realm of AI and data usage. However, it might also be the much-needed check against our collective slippery slope towards AI dystopia. With the standardization and ethical guidelines in place, there might be less worry about waking up one day finding our data being used in some malicious AI contraption.
In the end, isn’t that a measure of sanity we all could do with in our present world – creepily populated with AI and ominously brimming with data? Probably. Luckily, the Dataset Providers Alliance is firing the first shot in the direction of a more civil, ethical use of our data. Because after all, in the vast datascape that is our reality, wouldn’t it be nice to know there are some sheriffs in town?