The Department of Industry, Science and Resources National AI Centre (NAIC) has released a Voluntary AI Safety Standard that gives practical guidance to all Australian organisations on how to safely and responsibly use and innovate with artificial intelligence.
Through the Safe and Responsible AI agenda, the Australian Government is acting to ensure that the development and deployment of AI systems in legitimate but high-risk settings is safe and can be relied on while ensuring that the use of AI in low-risk settings can continue to flourish largely unimpeded.
The standard consists of ten voluntary guardrails that apply to all organisations throughout the AI supply chain. They include testing, transparency and accountability requirements across the supply chain. They also explain what developers and deployers of AI systems must do to comply with the guardrails. The voluntary guardrails include:
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Establish, implement, and publish an accountability process including governance, internal capability and a strategy for regulatory compliance;
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Establish and implement a risk management process to identify and mitigate risks;
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Protect AI systems, and implement data governance measures to manage data quality and provenance;
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Test AI models and systems to evaluate model performance and monitor the system once deployed;
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Enable human control or intervention in an AI system to achieve meaningful human oversight;
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Inform end-users regarding AI-enabled decisions, interactions with AI and AI-generated content;
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Establish processes for people impacted by AI systems to challenge use or outcomes
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Be transparent with other organisations across the AI supply chain about data, models and systems to help them effectively address risks;
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Keep and maintain records to allow third parties to assess compliance with guardrails; and
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Engage your stakeholders and evaluate their needs and circumstances, with a focus on safety, diversity, inclusion and fairness.
The first nine voluntary guardrails have been aligned closely with proposed mandatory guardrails, with the exception of the tenth voluntary guardrail, which emphasises the importance of ongoing engagement with stakeholders to evaluate their needs and circumstances.
