A group of the world's tech giants have joined forces to create ethical and technological standards for AI development. Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft are now all members of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, which will aim to allow “AI teams to share best practices”. The group will also include non-corporate members including “academics, non-profit [organisations] and specialists in policy and ethics”. It also means that the development teams behind IBM Watson, Amazon Alex and Google's DeepMind will now work together to work towards making the industry ethical, transparent and trustworthy. However, whilst the five founding companies are looking to invite other research labs and AI groups, names such as Apple are currently absent from the organisation. Microsoft's Eric Horvitz said the group had “been in discussions with Apple”, but that Apple had declined the invitation.Â
