All Tech Is Human Partners with Thorn and Leading Tech Companies to Promote Safety by Design Generative AI principles
April 23, 2024
By David Polgar, Founder & President at All Tech Is Human
Today’s announcement, Thorn and All Tech Is Human Forge Generative AI Principles with AI Leaders to Enact Strong Child Safety Commitments, is a watershed moment for industry collaboration to incorporate Safety by Design principles into the development, deployment, and maintenance of generative AI as it related to harms against children.
All Tech Is Human is honored to partner with Thorn, a nonprofit that builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse, on a historic alliance including Amazon, Anthropic, Civitai, Google, Meta, Metaphysic, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, and Stability AI, that commits to implement principles to guard against the production and dissemination of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (AIG-CSAM) and other sexual harms against children. This partnership and ongoing commitment to protecting children is aligned with All Tech Is Human’s longtime mission to unite key stakeholders to tackle thorny tech & society issues while moving at the speed of tech.
The significant harms associated with AIG-CSAM are a prime example of the importance of getting ahead of emerging technologies and how they can be abused. As we have seen with recent harmful image creation and sharing across middle and high schools, the misuse of generative AI is vexing to schools, parents, law enforcement, and students alike. How do we get ahead of the situation?
The speed of innovation typically outstrips society’s ability to consider its impact. That is why this commitment to generative AI principles designed to address harms against children is so important and pivotal. It is a proactive measure that embeds safety measures into AI products. As part of the commitments, participating companies have agreed to release ongoing progress updates.
Our organization is proud to have partnered with Thorn on this major initiative. Thorn is an inspiring non-profit that is deeply committed and laser-focused on building technology to defend children from sexual abuse. It was my honor and privilege to take part in the working group that led to the Safety by Design AI principles announced today. This working group was led by Dr. Rebecca Portnoff, who has worked in the intersection of machine learning/AI and child safety for over the last decade.
You can read more about recommended mitigations in the paper, “Safety by Design for Generative AI: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse,” which derived from the working group that featured the participation of numerous companies. The aim for these recommended mitigation measures is to make the misuse of generative AI involving children less likely.
Today’s announcement is a major achievement, but the battle to reduce harms against children is perpetual. Over the coming weeks, we will be adding additional companies to the list of key industry players committing to the Safety by Design generative AI principles. In addition, we will continue to share the important mitigation measures and suggestions outlined in “Safety by Design for Generative AI: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse.
Together, we work to solve tech and society’s thorniest issues.
All Tech Is Human welcomed Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant for a roundtable discussion on Safety by Design in 2023 at our office in Manhattan.
About All Tech Is Human
All Tech Is Human is a non-profit committed to building the world’s largest multistakeholder, multidisciplinary network in Responsible Tech. This allows us to tackle wicked tech & society issues while moving at the speed of tech, leverage the collective intelligence of the community, and diversify the traditional tech pipeline. Together, we work to solve tech & society’s thorniest issues.
About Thorn
Thorn is a nonprofit that builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse. Founded in 2012, the organization creates products and programs to empower the platforms and people who have the ability to defend children.
Thorn’s tools have helped the tech industry detect and report millions of child sexual abuse files on the open web, connected investigators and NGOs with critical information to help them solve cases faster and remove children from harm, and provided parents and youth with digital safety resources to prevent abuse.