Giving Compass' Take:

• As AI technology continues to grow, harnessing its power for the good of humanity will be difficult but vital. Will Byrne outlines potential pitfalls and opportunities for AI. 

• How can philanthropy help support the development of ethical AI? How can advocates work to prevent the rise of abusive AI? 

• Learn more about the need for AI regulation.

Here are five steps we can take now to ensure AI achieves the heights it should, and serves humanity in the process.

1. Build AI to amplify, not replace.
AI’s ability to input, associate, and recall information transcends what people can do. But a person’s ability to use this information to reason, evaluate, and strategize far exceeds the capabilities of any machine. These two powers combine to make for a potent force.

2. Make AI explainable.
Opaque AI seems innocuous when recommending what you should watch on Netflix. But AI is now also powering decisions where lives and livelihoods are on the line, across criminal sentencing, loan worthiness, hiring, firing, medical diagnoses, and autonomous transport. If an algorithm denies your family a critical loan, you’re going to want to understand why.

3. Diversify AI's creators.
While machine-driven decisions may evoke accuracy, all AI is built upon data fed to it by humans, and AI is only as effective as the data set upon which it is trained. This data comes from our society, and our society, unfortunately, is rife with bias. Without rigorous review of the training data, algorithms can encode or even compound the prejudices in our culture. But beating bias is only one reason for diversity in AI. It’s also about pointing the field at the full spectrum of problems people face.

4. Sheild AI from the big-tech industrial complex. 
Another obstacle to AI’s potential is the growing monopoly of the world’s largest tech companies on the burgeoning field’s talent.

5. Point AI at "moonshots" that solve humanities biggest problems. 
It’s time we harness this power toward our greatest challenges, not just because it’s right, but because it will capture the imagination of a new generation of entrepreneurs, and elevate the tech to new heights.

Read the full article about AI for humanity by Will Byrne at FastCompany.