Photo of Fang Chen and Adam Berry

UTS Data Science Institute's Distinguished Professor Fang Chen and Associate Professor Adam Berry. Photo Toby Burrows.

The use of AI has quickly become essential to businesses around the world. With 84 per cent of business executives currently believing that they need to use AI to achieve their growth objectives, AI is projected to contribute more than $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

In the absence of consistent and universally applicable standards for ethical AI, some people have reservations about whether this is being applied in a fair and ethical manner.

Some governments have begun to respond. The Australian Government, for example, has developed a set of principles for ethical AI and is encouraging companies to follow them under a voluntary framework.

World-first AI workforce platform    

UTS researchers led by Distinguished Professor Fang Chen have built a world-first assurance framework that enables industry to demonstrate that ethical AI principles have been embedded into their models and that independent validation is possible.

UTS researchers have partnered with Reejig, a leading workforce intelligence company, to independently review their ethical talent AI, setting a new path forward for AI trust and ethics in industry.

One of the team members, Associate Professor Jianlong Zhou, believes the research could accelerate the adoption of AI technology by enabling companies to build in ethical safeguards.

“There is emerging general consensus around ethical principles for AI, but how you take these to practice was still an unchartered area – there was a desperate need for applicable standards, protocols, tools, steps and procedures,” he says.

“We provided the tools the market needed to take ethics from principles to practice.”

Rigorous assurance

The UTS research team surveyed more than 100 different global guidelines on ethical AI to establish internationally recognized principles for ethical AI, including accountability, transparency, fairness and privacy.

Drawing on data analytic techniques and computer models, as well as qualitative checklists, the Reejig algorithm was tested against these principles.

The review conducted by UTS will help Reejig’s customers, such as Woolworths Group, KPMG, Allianz, and the NSW Government, to feel more confident in the systems they adopt.

“Frameworks provide guidance however we believe that’s like marking your own homework. Boards, organizations, and decision makers are exposed to real risk that they may unwittingly be causing harm or bias,” says Reejig Chief Executive Officer Siobhan Savage.

“Given what’s at stake, we were astounded that there was no independent assurance that the AI an organisation adopts is ethical and unbiased.”

The new platform and assurance framework sitting behind it aim to change all that for the better.

The new platform has been recognised internationally, with the World Economic Forum selecting Reejig as one of the 100 most promising global Technology Pioneers for 2022. These are early- to growth-stage companies creating new technologies and innovations that are poised to have a significant impact on business and society.

 

Research team

Future industries
Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.