Microsoft unveils responsible AI guidelines and dashboard

With the guidelines and dashboard Microsoft appears to be going beyond just articulating  responsible AI, said Svetlana Sicular, an analyst at Gartner. The vendor is also giving enterprises the tools to implement it, she said.

“This is the first set of guidance supported with the dashboard — a package — that says this is how you go beyond principles,” Sicular said.

Meanwhile,  many organizations, including Gartner, have their own set of principles for to use responsible and ethical AI, Sicular noted..

However, the question is how enterprises can go beyond the principles and provide the software tools to enable responsible AI, a problem most organizations that use AI face.

“It’s in everybody’s interest to have an honest and clean name for AI,” Sicular said. “AI has a big problem. This is a problem of trust. This is a problem of doing the right thing.”

Mistrust surrounding AI often is not intentional, Sicular continued.

Data scientists who put algorithms and data together often aren’t able to ask all the questions that account for all applications.

In many cases, it’s not their specific responsibility. Rather, it’s  the job of product leaders to think about all applications of AI and machine learning models.

Microsoft, along with Google, has stood out in the early development of rules for how to use AI responsibly, Sicular said.

Google, in recent years, has been criticized for bias in some of its AI technology, as has Facebook.

“Microsoft has a tradition of dealing with the enterprise,” Sicular added. “I feel like this guideline is another step for them to support the enterprise.”

Sicular said the next step for vendors such as Microsoft is to make responsible AI ubiquitous to make responsible AI applicable  in different industries.

The vendor’s AI guidelines are now available to be downloaded free on the Microsoft Azure website. The Responsible AI dashboard is also generally available in open source.