Developing standards

7014.1: Recommended Practice for Ethical Considerations of Emulated Empathy in Partner-based General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems

Building on academic work led through the Emotional AI Lab and, separately, the IEEE P7104 Standard for Ethical considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, we are developing P7014.1 a technical standard to address the overlap between simulated empathy and human-AI partnering.

Focusing on this overlap, the IEEE P7014.1 standard will define ethical considerations, detail good practices, and augment and complement international human rights and regional law.

Use cases encompass general-purpose artificial intelligence products marketed as ‘empathic partners’, ‘personal AI’, ‘co-pilots’, ‘assistants’, and related phrasing for ‘human-AI partnering’. Current and nascent domains of use include work, therapy, education, life coaching, legal problems, fitness, entertainment, and more.

These systems raise ethical questions that are global in nature, yet benefitting from diverse ethical approaches, especially where systems feed into the design of human-centered technologies. Some ethical questions are familiar (e.g. transparency, accountability, bias and fairness), but others are specific and unique, including psychological interactions and dependencies, child appropriateness, fiduciary issues, animism, and manipulation through partnerships with general-purpose artificial intelligence systems.

For info, contact IEEE P7014.1 Working Group Chair, Andrew McStay

For community, join/follow the LinkedIn P7014.1 group

IEEE

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the “world’s largest technical professional organization”, and one of the primary standards development organisations (SDOs).

AI ethics standards

Following a well-established legacy of technical standards, for business, engineering, science, etc. a new generation of standards has emerged to address AI ethics, spearheaded by the IEEE 7000 series.

IEEE 7014

IEEE 7014 is the Standard for Ethical considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems.

Relationship with AEGIS

One of the key outputs of the AEGIS project is to launch the IEEE P7014.1 working group to draft the recommended practice. This process will engage with a diverse global expert group to develop 7014.1 via IEEE’s Working Group process.

IEEE 7014.1

A key output of the AEGIS project is to draft a new IEEE Recommended Practice, specifically addressing the urgent ethical issues at the intersection of empathy, general-purpose AI, and human-machine partnerships.

Participate

IEEE standards working groups are open to all. Learn more about the project and how to participate [link coming soon!].