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The Powerhouse in the Era of AI Governance Xu Li: SenseTime's Answer is Development
2021-07-10

At the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) held in Shanghai, SenseTime, the world's leading AI platform company, made a grand appearance and provided in-depth analysis and discussion on AI governance at the main forum, the SenseTime Forum for Science and Technology Enterprises and the AI Governance Forum.


Over the years, the rapid development of science and technology has brought about various technological innovations and reforms to the human society.


Looking into the future, AI has the great potential to bring an unprecedented new paradigm of innovation to the development of science and technology. On the one hand, the development of AI technologies can help mankind extend the boundary and ecology of fundamental scientific study; on the other hand, different industries can find new directions for development and innovation with the application of AI technologies.


However, as the innovation of AI usually stems from the subversion of our perception of the world, the issue of ethical governance has thus become increasingly important in its industrial application.

From the perspective of industrial development, AI applications have always brought double-edged sword effects, and related technical ethics and privacy boundaries have received increasingly greater attention from all sectors of society.


At the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) held in Shanghai, SenseTime, the world's leading AI platform company, made a grand appearance and provided in-depth analysis and discussion on AI governance at the main forum, the SenseTime Forum for Science and Technology Enterprises and the AI Governance Forum.


Concerning the potential risks and challenges brought about by the development of AI technologies, Xu Li, co-founder and CEO of SenseTime, shared his opinions on ethical governance in AI, advocating a development-oriented concept. One of the significant goals of ethical governance in AI is to utilize AI to promote the equitable and inclusive development of society.


AI governance is a balancing act with multiple goals and in multiple dimensions, and is always built around balanced ethical governance standards that are technologically safe and controllable, people-centric and developmentally sustainable. According to Mr. Xu, different regions at different development phases need to achieve the balanced development of these three factors.


While applying advanced technologies, the everchanging industrial reform should be considered. For different stages of development, A developmental balance is needed for different governance frameworks. Currently, China's AI industry is experiencing rapid growth with the potential to catch up with and lead the world.


For AI governance, SenseTime will continue to cooperate with the government, industry and academia, to jointly explore the governance model for the sustainable development of AI industry.

Viewed from another perspective, AI, while promoting the growth of the digital economy and smart economy, should also take measures to actively close the three "gaps".


For example, AI promotes sustainable industry development, closing the "employment gap"; AI achieves balanced development, closing the "resource gap"; and AI deals with the challenges brought by concentrated urban development, closing the "human resources gap" in urban management.

Tian Feng, Dean of SenseTime's Intelligence Industry Research Institute, believed that, although the pandemic widened the "employment gap", it showed the great potential of AI technologies, and activated the urgent needs of the real economy to achieve intelligent upgrading through the application of emerging technologies, thereby boosting the rapid development of the "AI+" industry.

The pandemic even facilitated the establishment of "digital government" and accelerated the digital and intelligent transformation of social governance.


Besides, Mr. Tian further pointed out that, in the post-pandemic era, we should promote the accelerated application of digital technologies, and unleash and enjoy digital benefits. At the same time, we should also give full play to the advantages of technology and innovation in closing the "resource gap" more quickly and creating shared benefits, bringing the benefits of digital economy to people across all races, generations, urban and rural areas, and regions, enhancing social justice and fairness.


It's worth mentioning that SenseTime has been dedicated to the practice of AI governance for decades and has yielded fruitful results. One aspect is that, through cooperation with the academic and industrial communities, we have initiated related studies on AI governance. For example, in March of this year, SenseTime and Shanghai Jiaotong University unveiled the Center for Computational Law and AI Ethics Study of Shanghai Jiaotong University, aiming to create a rich case foundation for AI governance, and provide judicial precedents for AI ethics and governance; in April, SenseTime established cooperation with the School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, to study issues related to the sustainable development of AI and make contributions to achieve agile AI governance. Moreover, SenseTime's "Code of Ethics for AI Sustainable Development" was included in the "Resource Guide on Artificial Intelligence Strategies" released by UN. At this year's WAIC, Liu Zhiyi, Director of SenseTime's Intelligence Industry Research Institute, participated in the Youth Forum on the Rule of Law on behalf of the Center for Computational Law and AI Ethics Study. The comments and practices of SenseTime on AI development and governance were also included in the newly released Blue Book of World Artificial Intelligence Rule of Law.


In addition, SenseTime has set up an internal Committee of Ethics, a Committee of Safety and a Committee of Products, formulating and implementing strict ethical standards on the application of AI technologies to respect and protect individual privacy to the greatest extent possible, and ensure the proper utilization of AI technologies.


Furthermore, SenseTime has passed three international safety standards evaluations and one national standards review, i.e. ISO 27001—information security management systems certification, ISO 29151—personal identity information protection practical guidance certification, ISO 27701—privacy information management systems certification, and the Ministry of Public Security's "Multi-Level Protection Scheme (MLPS) 2.0" Level-3 requirements for cybersecurity. SenseTime has become the first AI enterprise to concurrently receive these four certifications.


SenseTime is also a leader unit under the National Working Group of Facial Recognition, taking the lead in drawing up national technical standards and testing standards for facial recognition systems. Internationally, SenseTime also successfully established the IEEE standard "Technical Requirements for Facial Recognition Systems" at the close of 2020, and chaired the working group on "Facial Recognition".


"AI for a better tomorrow" is SenseTime's mission and vision. It continuously inspires us to further consider and implement AI governance, leverage AI to benefit the people, strengthen industrial capacities and achieve open and inclusive innovation.


The sustainable development of the AI industry is our eternal goal. Moving forward, SenseTime remains committed to promoting progress of AI governance, facilitating the development and application of AI technologies in a fair, safe, controllable, and responsible manner, and advancing the long-term and healthy development of the AI industry in the most responsible manner.

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