At ML6, we are all passionate about technology and motivated by the potential benefits AI can bring to our clients and to society. We are however also aware that AI can carry certain ethical concerns and risks, which need to be addressed.
Responsibility & Ethical AI has always been an important topic for ML6. In the past, we have taken many steps already to define what trustworthy AI means for us, what our principles are and which applications we pledge to not develop.
With this framework in mind, we took a big step to structurally move our principles into practice. The result was the creation of our Ethical AI Unit at ML6, a group of ML6 agents dedicated to the topic of Ethical AI.
As mentioned above, considering Ethics within all that we do is important to us. It fosters trust in our solutions and in our mission both with clients as well as with our employees.
The Ethical AI unit is our way to stay at the forefront of the rapidly evolving field, and to institutionalise our ethical principles. It enables us to advise our clients on ethical risks and upcoming regulatory requirements, and to integrate best practices in our processes and in the design and development of all our AI solutions. Our goal is to maximise the value of AI while identifying and mitigating potential risks.
The Ethical AI unit at ML6 has two main purposes. The first purpose of the Ethics unit is to serve as a “sounding board” to discuss ethically sensitive projects that emerge during the sales process. Given that there is often no “one right answer” to ethical questions, it is important to discuss these cases in a diverse group, taking different perspectives into consideration. This is how the Ethics unit enables ML6 to identify potential ethical risks early on, and define risk mitigation measures to take during design and development of the AI solution.
The second purpose of the unit is in keeping up with the evolving field of Ethical AI and implementing ethical and legal considerations and best practices into our processes at ML6. This includes preparing for and giving feedback on the upcoming EU AI Act and other relevant regulation, researching topics such as bias & fairness, implementing best practices, and creating awareness internally and externally on the topic.
The Ethical AI unit has specifically been created with diversity in mind — including people from all different units at ML6 — from Engineers to Sales to Management -, different geographical locations, backgrounds and genders. This is strongly aligned with the two purposes of the unit and enables us to take different perspectives and knowledge into account.
Since starting the Ethical AI unit, we have learned a lot. Let us share a few practical tips on what to watch out for if you want to start structurally integrating Ethical considerations into your organisation and processes:
This is in a nutshell what our new Ethical AI unit is and what we learned in the process of building it up. Reach out if you have questions or want to talk about Ethical AI!