To speak to a human, press one!

The more I observe how important it is to be connected to the Internet the more I believe we need to invest in developing our own AI Bill of Rights.

The online world has facilitated many blessings for us; we use it to communicate with our loved ones, we order our ration, rides and much more through it, not to mention how it gives us access to an ever-increasing number of public and private services.

It has also facilitated for us doing good through crowdfunding and crowdsourcing.

On the other hand, in several cases blessings left inappropriately appreciated and checks may turn into curses, as in the case of our overuse of social media.

Artificial Intelligence, commonly abbreviated as AI, which means machine intelligence as opposed to human or animal intelligence, has enabled us to automate systems at an unprecedented speed and convenience.

This would not be possible without these automated systems harnessing our personal and business data into algorithms that solve problems.

Today, the question is how can we develop these automated systems in a way that is humane, effective and private through a set of rules of a Bill of Rights?

To speak to a human, press one!

How many times have you waited on the line for an automated system to solve a service issue that would have taken a fellow human being a few moments?

As we access our justice, education, health, housing, telecommunications and power services increasingly through web and mobile applications, we need to establish the right to speak to a human being, especially when the issue requires fair treatment, empathy and consideration. Otherwise, our world would be on a slippery slope towards situations where life and death decisions related to ourselves and our loved ones would be taken by automated systems who have less understanding of the full picture of the impact of their decisions than a seasoned human being.

Safety first

Warnings and red flags about risks of harmful data preaches are more common today because of the terabytes of data about each one of us in servers and clouds all over the world.

Loose data could be an invitation for ill-meaning individuals and organisations around the world who chose harming and endangering others as a way of life.

We automated systems that are developed in a way to prevent, mitigate and eliminate risks and dangers lurking around the web.

Privacy and surveillance

Unreasonable surveillance is a community’s worst nightmare; it corners you between leading a normal life and giving up your privacy, potentially to be used against.

To mitigate all the above risks, we should nudge all developers towards considering algorithmic justice.

We have rules for many blessings from mobility and driving to relationships, and how we build things; so why not adopt rules for automated systems, or an AI Bill of Rights that make our life much more humane, safer and effective?