{"id":618,"date":"2025-04-01T21:01:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T21:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/?p=4300476"},"modified":"2025-04-01T21:01:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T21:01:04","slug":"how-can-ai-be-used-safely-researchers-from-harvard-mit-ibm-microsoft-weigh-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tecnoartesanos.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/01\/how-can-ai-be-used-safely-researchers-from-harvard-mit-ibm-microsoft-weigh-in\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can AI Be Used Safely? Researchers From Harvard, MIT, IBM & Microsoft Weigh In"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image: Shutter2U\/Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An important focus of AI research is improving an AI system\u2019s factualness and trustworthiness. Even though significant progress has been made in these areas, some AI experts are pessimistic that these issues will be solved in the near future. That is one of the main findings of a new report by The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), which includes insights from experts from various academic institutions (e.g., MIT, Harvard, and University of Oxford) and tech giants (e.g., Microsoft and IBM).<\/p>\n

The goal of the study was to define the current trends and the research challenges to make AI more capable and reliable so the technology can be safely used, wrote AAAI President Francesca Rossi. The report includes 17 topics related to AI research culled by a group of 24 \u201cvery diverse\u201d and experienced AI researchers, along with 475 respondents from the AAAI community, she noted. Here are highlights from this AI research report.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Improving an AI system\u2019s trustworthiness and factuality<\/span><\/h2>\n

An AI system is considered factual if it doesn\u2019t output false statements, and its trustworthiness can be improved by including criteria \u201csuch as human understandability, robustness, and the incorporation of human values,\u2019\u2019 the report\u2019s authors stated.<\/p>\n

Other criteria to consider are fine-tuning and verifying machine outputs, and replacing complex models with simple understandable models.<\/p>\n

SEE: <\/b>How to Keep AI Trustworthy<\/b><\/a> from TechRepublic Premium<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/span>Making AI more ethical and safer<\/span><\/h2>\n

AI is becoming more popular, and this requires greater responsibility for AI systems, according to the report. For example, emerging threats such as AI-driven cybercrime and autonomous weapons require immediate attention, along with the ethical implications of new AI techniques.<\/p>\n

Among the most pressing ethical challenges, the top concerns respondents had were:<\/p>\n