Some of the world’s largest tech companies are coming together to form a partnership aimed at educating the public about the advancements of artificial intelligence and ensure they meet ethical standards.

The group appears to be the one revealed in a New York Times story in early September. Interestingly, two big names are missing from the group, those of Apple Inc. and the SpaceX-man of the hour, Elon Musk. The group will be headed by Microsoft’s research chief, Eric Horvitz, and DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman. When asked about Apple’s absence, Horvitz responded, “We’ve been in discussions with Apple, I know they’re enthusiastic about this effort, and I’d personally hope to see them join.”

The group’s mission is spread across multiple layers of industries and disciplines, ranging from experts informing the public on matters concerning psychology, philosophy, finance, law and public policy to the impact of AI on the job market. “We believe that artificial intelligence technologies hold great promise for raising the quality of people’s lives and can be leveraged to help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health, and education,” the group stated in a series of “tenets.”

One of the chief reasons for the group is to assuage fears the public might have, or dispel myths, concerning AI. Another nexus of interest will be around ethics, with the group inviting academic experts to work with companies on AI for the best of humanity.

Ethics is a major consideration when talking about AI. Only recently Google Inc. reported it would be using AI to censor the Internet, raising issues about the role of AI in policing online content.

In the tenets the group says it opposes any kind of AI that violates “international conventions on human rights,” or technologies that could do harm. But it’s not clear whether this means opposing working with government surveillance authorities, or opposing forms of online censorship.

Speaking to the media, Suleyman said, “The reason we all work on AI is because we passionately believe its ability to transform our world.” He added that the road to its success not only depends on the quality of algorithms but also the public’s involvement which will “ensure AI is understood by and benefits as many people as possible.”

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