'Guardrails' introduced to make AI safer

The Australian federal government has announced a set of voluntary guidelines for businesses using artificial intelligence (AI), as it looks towards legislating a mandatory code.

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Key Points

• The Australian government has created a voluntary code to help guide businesses using AI. There are 10 areas, or 'guardrails' in the voluntary guide.
• The first section is around processes, ensuring businesses have risk management systems in place and staff are educated in the use of AI, that data is protected, and that records are kept for compliance checks.
• The government also plan to implement a mandatory code for high-risk use of AI.

The voluntary code sets out requirements for human oversight, establishing that companies are responsible for their own use of AI, that they must test the systems they're using, that there must be human oversight, and an opportunity for decisions made by AI to be challenged.

Those creating AI models need to be transparent about how they work, and businesses creating or using AI need to work with groups that could be impacted by AI systems.