Guardrails for artificial intelligence in the workplace

The Voluntary AI Safety Standard aims to help organisations develop and deploy AI systems in Australia safely and reliably.

It contains 10 proposed guardrails for the development and deployment of AI in high-risk settings, which are open for public consultation.

The Australian Government says adopting the guardrails will create a foundation for safe and responsible AI use and will make it easier for any organisation to comply with any potential future regulatory requirements in Australia and emerging international practices.

The guardrails are:

1. Establish, implement and publish an accountability process including governance, internal capability and a strategy for regulatory compliance
2. Establish and implement a risk management process to identify and mitigate risks
3. Protect AI systems, and implement data governance measures to manage data quality and provenance
4. Test AI models and systems to evaluate model performance and monitor the system once deployed
5. Enable human control or intervention in an AI system to achieve meaningful human oversight across the life cycle
6. Inform end-users regarding AI-enabled decisions, interactions with AI and AI-generated content
7. Establish processes for people impacted by AI systems to challenge use or outcomes
8. Be transparent with other organisations across the AI supply chain about data, models and systems to help them effectively address risks
9. Keep and maintain records to allow third parties to assess compliance with guardrails
10. Engage your stakeholders and evaluate their needs and circumstances, with a focus on safety, diversity, inclusion and fairness.

It comes as the Australian Government’s recently released Responsible AI Index 2024 shows Australian businesses consistently overestimate their capability to employ responsible AI practices.

It found 78 per cent of Australian businesses believe they were implementing AI safely and responsibly but in only 29 per cent of cases was this correct, reinforcing that “Australian businesses need more guidance in adopting safe and responsible artificial intelligence practices”.

Consultation on the Proposals Paper for Introducing Mandatory Guardrails for AI in High-Risk Settings is open for four weeks, closing Friday 4 October 2024.

Potential for workplace benefits

A report from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) highlights the opportunity that AI adoption can bring including productivity benefits, efficiencies and flexibility for business and workers.

Accelerating the Potential of AI in Business explores the potential of AI and considers key steps to address existing gaps and managing risks.

Key findings include:

• Even with significantly more resources, larger businesses are yet to fully leverage AI, citing data management and lack of an AI adoption strategy as the biggest barriers to moving from planning to implementation
• SMEs lack of comprehension and knowledge about AI, with the need for training seen as the primary barrier. This is part of a larger digital literacy deficiency, with three in five Australian employers lacking one or more of the digital skills they require to do business.
• Data management is one of the top concerns voiced by both large and small businesses: 57 per cent of business leaders and governance professionals rate their data management and security as ‘average’
• Good regulatory stewardship in a sector can act to increase the speed and likelihood of adoption of AI technologies in businesses.

ACCI chief executive officer Andrew McKellar said the report seeks to provide some insights and simple principles to guide businesses and help them capitalise on the opportunity: “AI adoption has the power to fundamentally improve productivity and enhance flexibility to ways of working in the near term, with benefits to business and workers.”

The full report can be found via Accelerating the Potential of AI in Business.