Rolls-Royce has announced two breakthroughs in artificial intelligence ethics. The Derby-headquartered company said the moves could help gain society’s trust of the technology and accelerate the next generation of industrialisation, known as industry 5.0.

The first breakthrough is an AI ethics framework, which is a method that any organisation can use to ensure the decisions it takes to use AI in critical and non-critical applications are ethical. This is the first time AI ethics for industrial contexts has moved beyond theory and into practical application.

Secondly, within that framework, is the first step-by-step process for ensuring the outcomes of AI algorithms can be trusted.

“By publishing our findings we want to move the AI ethics conversation forwards from discussing concepts and guidelines, to accelerating the process of applying it ethically. There is no practical reason why trust in AI cannot be created now. And it’s only with the acceptance and permission of our society – based on that trust – that the full benefits of AI can be realised, and it can take its place as a partner in our lives and work,” said Rolls-Royce chief executive, Warren East, in a keynote speech at London Tech Week’s AI Summit.

“As a business we are open to collaborative innovation and we will continue to talk to key stakeholders, customers, counterparts and technology leaders to share our work in detail to see how we can help each other progress for the greater growth, wealth and health of our world.”

This five-layer checking system focuses on the outputs of algorithms, not the algorithms themselves, which are constantly changing.

The checking system prevents biases from developing in algorithms undetected and with results being constantly monitored, it ensures they are trustworthy.

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