Unity develops a guide to ‘ethical AI’

Unity has launched a guide to ethical artificial intelligence (AI).

Unity’s Guide to Ethical AI sets out principles meant as a blueprint for the "responsible use of AI for our developers, our community, and our company". The six guiding principles – be unbiased, be accountable, be fair, be responsible, be honest, and be trustworthy – are the first steps in drawing up best practice principles and are expected to change and expand over time as the company adapts and responds to its community of developers, regulators, and partners.

"AI is a powerful and disruptive technology altering the landscape of application development and the greater world as we know it," the company said via a blog update. "Think about that: ‘altering the landscape and the greater world as we know it.’ Because we see AI as a potentially powerful tool, we feel compelled to express clear ethical and moral principles defining how we use AI."

Here are the principles in full:

1. Be Unbiased: Design AI tools to complement the human experience in a positive way. Consider all types of human experiences in this pursuit. Diversity of perspective will lead to AI complementing experiences for everybody, as opposed to a select few.
2. Be Accountable: Consider the potential negative consequences of the AI tools we build. Anticipate what might cause potential direct or indirect harm and engineer to avoid and minimize these problems.
3. Be Fair: Do not knowingly develop AI tools and experiences that interfere with normal, functioning democratic systems of government. This means saying no to product development aimed at the suppression of human rights, as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the right to free expression.
4. Be Responsible: Develop products responsibly and do not take advantage of your products’ users by manipulating them through AI’s vastly more predictive capabilities derived from user data.
5. Be Honest: Trust the users of the technology to understand the product’s purpose so they can make informed decisions about whether to use the product. Be clear and be transparent.
6. Be Trustworthy: Guard the AI derived data as if it were handed to you by your customer directly in trust to only be used as directed under the other principles found in this guide.

"The adoption of AI is increasing at a fast pace," the company said via a statement. "It’s helping developers in every area of society – entertainment, science, education, healthcare, manufacturing, design, and engineering, you name it – to create solutions, implement change, and drive progress. We believe turning Unity developers into experienced AI practitioners is one of the best ways to democratize the technology."

"At Unity, we fundamentally believe the world is a better place with more creators in it," the company added. "It’s our mission every day to democratize development, solve hard problems, and enable success for creators in diverse industries such as games, automotive, media and entertainment."