Abstract: From humanity’s existential risks to safety risks in critical systems to ethical risks, responsible AI, as the saviour, has become a massive research challenge with significant real-world consequences. However, achieving responsible AI remains elusive despite the plethora of high-level ethical principles, risk frameworks and progress in algorithmic assurance. In the meantime, software engineering (SE) is being upended by AI, grappling with building system-level quality and alignment from inscrutable ML models and code generated from natural language prompts. The upending poses new challenges and opportunities for engineering AI systems responsibly. This talk will share our experiences in helping the industry achieve responsible AI systems by inventing new SE approaches. It will dive into industry challenges (such as risk silos and principle-algorithm gaps) and research challenges (such as lack of requirements, emerging properties and inscrutable systems) and make the point that SE is the linchpin of responsible AI. But SE also requires some fundamental rethinking - shifting from building functions to AI systems to discovering and managing emerging functions from AI systems. Only by doing so can SE take on critical new roles, from understanding human intelligence to building a thriving human-AI symbiosis.

Bio: Dr. Liming Zhu is the Research Director of Software and Computational Systems division at CSIRO’s Data61. Data61 is part of The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Australia’s data/AI innovation arm. The division innovates in the area of AI/ML/big data infrastructure, computational and simulation sciences platforms, trustworthy and responsible AI, distributed systems, blockchains, software ecosystems, software engineering/architecture, DevOps, quantum software, privacy and cybersecurity. He is also a conjoint full professor position at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). He is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He formerly worked in several technology lead positions in software industry before obtaining a PHD degree in software engineering from UNSW. He is currently the chairperson of Standards Australia’s blockchain and distributed ledger committee and on AI trustworthiness related committees. He has supervised more than 20 PhD students and taught software architecture courses at UNSW and University of Sydney. He has published more than 200 academic papers on software architecture, secure systems and data/ML infrastructure, blockchain, governance and responsible AI.

Dr/Prof Liming Zhu is a Research Director at CSIRO’s Data61 and a conjoint full professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). He is the chairperson of Standards Australia’s blockchain committee and on AI trustworthiness-related committees. He is a member of the Responsible AI think tank at the National AI Center. His research program innovates in the areas of AI/ML platforms, responsible/ethical AI, software engineering, blockchain, regulation technology, quantum software, privacy and cybersecurity. He has published more than 300 academic papers on software architecture, data/ML infrastructure, blockchain, governance and responsible AI.