SenseTime is among China’s most renowned AI companies. Back in April, we reported it had become the world’s most funded AI startup.

Part of the company’s monumental success is the popularity of facial recognition in China where it’s used in many aspects of citizens’ lives. Just yesterday, game developer Tencent announced it’s testing facial recognition to check users’ ages.

Xu Li, CEO of SenseTime, says immigration officials doubted the accuracy of facial recognition technology when he first introduced his own. “We knew about it 20 years ago and, combined with fingerprint checks, the accuracy is only 53 per cent,” one told him.

Facial recognition has come a long way since 20 years ago. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have led to even greater leaps, resulting in companies such as SenseTime.

To dispel the idea that facial recognition is still inaccurate, Li wants ‘trust levels’ to be established.

“With standards, technology adopters can better understand the risk involved, just like credit worthiness for individuals and companies,” Xu said to South China Morning Post. “Providers of facial recognition can be assigned different trust levels, ranging from financial security at the top to entertainment uses.”

Many of the leading facial recognition technologies have their own built-in trust levels. These levels determine how certain the software must be to call it a match.

Back in July, AI News reported on the findings of ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) which found Amazon’s facial recognition AI erroneously labelled those with darker skin colours as criminals more often when matching against mugshots.

Amazon claims the ACLU left the facial recognition service’s default confidence setting of 80 percent on – when it suggests 95 percent or higher for law enforcement.

Responding to the ACLU’s findings, Dr Matt Wood, GM of Deep Learning and AI at Amazon Web Services, also called for regulations. However, Wood asks the government to force a minimum confidence level for the use of facial recognition in law enforcement.

Li and Wood may be calling for different regulations, but they – and many other AI leaders – agree that some are essential to ensure a healthy industry.

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Some of the world’s greatest minds have expressed concern about the development of AI without regulations — including the likes of Elon Musk, and the late Stephen Hawking.

Musk famously said unregulated AI could post “the biggest risk we face as a civilisation”, while Hawking similarly warned “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

The announcement that developers will be free to experiment with AI as they see fit was made during a meeting with representatives of 40 companies including Google, Facebook, and Intel.

Strict regulations can stifle innovation, and the U.S has made clear it wants to emerge a world leader in the AI race.

Western nations are often seen as somewhat at a disadvantage to Eastern countries like China, not because they have less talent, but citizens are more wary about data collection and their privacy in general. However, there’s a strong argument to be made for striking a balance.

Making the announcement, White House Science Advisor Michael Kratsios noted the government did not stand in the way of Alexander Graham Bell or the Wright brothers when they invented the telephone and aeroplane. Of course, telephones and aeroplanes weren’t designed with the ultimate goal of becoming self-aware and able to make automated decisions.

Both telephones and aeroplanes, like many technological advancements, have been used for military applications. However, human operators have ultimately always made the decisions. AI could be used to automatically launch a nuclear missile if left unchecked.

Recent AI stories have some people unnerved. A self-driving car from Uber malfunctioned and killed a pedestrian. At Google I/O, the company’s AI called a hair salon and the receptionist had no idea they were not speaking to a human.

People not feeling comfortable with AI developments is more likely to stifle innovation than balanced regulations.

What are your thoughts on the White House’s approach to AI regulation?

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