Josh.ai has published what might be the first guidelines for the ethical use of AI within a smart home environment. According to the company, the recently published AI Code of Conduct aims to define how AI should behave in modern living spaces, establishing clear rules for companies deploying AI while ensuring clients remain in control of their personal property. Of course, this is meant to be a set of recommendations provided by Josh.ai as one of the pioneering companies of AI usage in the industry.
“People are right to ask what happens when AI can unlock a door or watch a camera in their home and our answer is simple – The intelligence in a home must always answer to the people who live there,” explained Alex Capecelatro, CEO of Josh.ai.
“We are publishing these principles to hold ourselves to them first, and to provide the entire industry with a clear standard to build toward.”
What Josh.ai’s AI Code of Conduct Aims to Do
According to Josh.ai, the proposed AI Code of Conduct has been built to ensure that as AI becomes more capable, it remains predictable, explainable, reversible, private and, above all, under human control.
Central to the Code are twelve rules and a Home Authority Stack that outlines how permission flows through a household with AI never controlling the home directly. Instead, Josh.ai believes that the control system should orchestrate the property’s permissions, ultimately deciding whether any action is allowed before it reaches a device.
It is a design Josh.ai argues is essential to safety, and one that distinguishes a true control system from a general-purpose assistant. Setting up that distinction is a clear separation between intelligence and authority.
According to Josh, while the AI reasons and suggests, it should never be allowed to operate a device on its own. Under the Code, every request should pass through the control system, which validates it against the household’s permissions before facilitating any action.
Josh.ai also states that the Code is built to address the growing worry that AI could one day improve itself beyond meaningful human oversight. Instead of slowing potential benefit, the company is advocating that AI practitioners should engineer the boundaries for AI as deliberately as possible so that, no matter what, it still must answer to the control system.
Why Integrators Should Take Note
The home is unlike any other environment for AI, although much of the concerns AI brings about by being present in the home mirrors those brought forward by proponents of cybersecurity in general. As the home stands as a personal domain connected devices must provide convenience and control without compromising security.
The inclusion of AI also demands better resource management as the general public has become more aware of and more sensitive to the many drawbacks of AI.
In developing its Code, Josh.ai states it has worked to translate a diverse body of work regarding AI safety, ethics, and device security into the specific context of the connected home. While this presents itself as a set of guidelines for the industry, the fact that it exists as one of the first formal pieces of work regarding AI in the smart home invites discussion on the matter.
In fact, the company is encouraging platform makers, device manufacturers, professional installers, and homeowners to adopt and strengthen these rules. Either way, for homeowners, the implementation of any guidelines will likely serve as a commitment that the intelligence entering their homes will remain helpful, private, and fully under their control.
Where to Find Josh.ai’s AI Code of Conduct
Readers can read the Josh.ai Code of Conduct for themselves at: josh.ai/ai
