WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Intelligence Community (IC) released the Principles of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics for the Intelligence Community and the related Artificial Intelligence Ethics Framework for the Intelligence Community. These principles and Framework, which the director of national intelligence (DNI) recently approved, will guide the IC’s ethical development and AI use.
“The IC leads in developing and using technology crucial to our national security mission. We cannot do so without recognizing and acting on its ethical implications,” said DNI John Ratcliffe. “These principles and their accompanying framework will help guide our mission leads and data scientists as they implement technology to solve intelligence problems.”
The Principles of AI Ethics demonstrate the IC’s commitment to ensuring its use and implementation of AI respect the law, protect the privacy and civil liberties, are transparent and accountable, remain objective and equitable, appropriately incorporate human judgment, are secure and resilient by design, and incorporate the best practices of the science and technology communities.
“In our increasingly complex digital world, the IC must adapt and adopt AI and related technologies to carry out its critical mission,” said Dean Souleles, who founded ODNI’s Augmenting Intelligence through Machines Innovation Hub. “One of the IC’s most important functions is to analyze and connect disparate data, infer meaning, and ultimately make analytic judgments based on all available data. AI provides powerful tools to execute this mission but also brings new challenges. That makes it even more important that we do so in both ethical and consistent ways with our values.”
IC data scientists, privacy and civil liberties officers, and other key stakeholders collaboratively developed the AI Ethics Framework to ensure the IC incorporates the Principles of AI Ethics into its design and use. The Framework provides public insight into the IC considers factors when deciding whether and how to use this technology to counter national security threats.
“We must ensure that our intelligence activities produce objective intelligence while protecting the privacy and civil liberties,” said Ben Huebner, ODNI Civil Liberties Protection Officer. “The use of AI provides new opportunities, but we must decide how to use it best to advance our mission. The Principles and Framework will provide a consistent approach.”
Source: Press Release ODNI News Release No. 27-20 Date: July 23, 2020