Australian chief scientist Alan Finkel says artificial intelligence (AI) providers should earn the public’s trust by agreeing to a set of ethical standards.

Dr Finkel suggests a system similar to the Fairtrade coffee certification should would apply to AI organisations and products.

Such a policy could impact the two dozen or so ASX stocks involved with Artificial Intelligence.

>> Such Scroll down for a list of ASX stocks with exposure to AI

“The word at the moment in the tech sectors is responsible — but you have to ask who is defining or auditing the standards and are they making the public feeling any better,” Dr Finkel asked at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia forum in Sydney on Friday.

Dr Finkel proposed a “Turing Certificate” — named in honour of Alan Turing, one of the early developers of computer science.

AI makers would apply for certification. Once they met the auditing requirements they could display the Turing Stamp.

“We would expect a government department to vet the provider of a service that, for example, replaced social workers with algorithms that predict the likelihood that a particular child will be violent,” Dr Finkel said.

“But how many consumers are going to have the knowledge or the time to individually vet every AI they encounter?

“What we need is an agreed standard and a clear seal — so that we don’t need expert knowledge to choose a product and company.”

The proposed standard comes after Google’s latest release of Duplex — software that can make phone calls and appointments on behalf of users.

After its release last week questions were raised about the ethics of a robot “deceiving” people into thinking they were speaking to a human.

To date there is no world standard in AI ethics.

ASX exposure

From optimising logistics or detecting fraud, to composing art, conducting research, providing translations: AI tech is being developed for a variety of applications.

There are only a few pure play AI companies — such as Flamingo AI (ASX:FGO), BrainChip (ASX:BRN) and Open DNA (ASX:OPN).

But there are 25 ASX-listed companies offering some level of exposure to artificial intelligence.

Spectur (ASX:SP3) is working on distinguishing between objects and threats from its security cameras to while Resonance Health (ASX:RHT) sorts through blood tests to identify rare diseases.

Here is a list of ASX stocks with exposure to AI:

ASX Code COMPANY 6 MONTH PRICE CHANGE Price May 18 MARKET CAP
4DS 4DS MEMORY -0.3095 0.06 $53,903,616
ALC ALCIDION GROUP -0.1458 0.06 $30,388,998
BID BIDENERGY -2.2143 0.05 $32,589,804
BRC BRAIN RESOURCE 0.4286 0.04 $21,250,394
BRN BRAINCHIP 0.3049 0.14 $135,671,264
BTC BTC HEALTH -0.0256 0.20 $26,059,306
CAJ CAPITOL HEALTH -0.0755 0.29 $229,699,792
CGS COGSTATE 0.1735 0.81 $92,631,744
CMP COMPUMEDICS -0.0563 0.38 $66,436,104
CM8 CROWD MOBILE 0.5939 0.07 $14,965,507
FGO FLAMINGO AI 0.4 0.05 $48,930,844
IPD IMPEDIMED 0.4271 0.55 $207,970,464
LBT LBT INNOVATIONS 0.5536 0.13 $25,115,878
LNU LINIUS TECHNOLOGIES -0.6809 0.08 $73,927,152
M7T MACH7 TECHNOLOGIES -0.2973 0.24 $30,292,658
MDR MEDADVISOR 0.1667 0.04 $52,717,120
MEB MEDIBIO 0.5139 0.18 $34,446,808
ONE ONEVIEW HEALTHCARE 0.1341 1.91 $125,028,208
OPN OPENDNA 0.32 0.07 $7,250,765
RAP RESAPP HEALTH -1.0833 0.15 $100,503,536
RHT RESONANCE HEALTH -0.2273 0.03 $11,269,932
SP3 SPECTUR 0.12 0.33 $17,150,000
UTR ULTRACHARGE -0.087 0.03 $19,515,642
VHT VOLPARA HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES -0.029 0.71 $121,064,312
WBT WEEBIT NANO -0.4444 0.07 $98,111,456
WHK WHITEHAWK -0.5 0.10 $6,950,250
YOJ YOJEE 0.2258 0.12 $92,092,800
Wordpress Table Plugin