Mark Surman is putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to AI. As president of the Mozilla Foundation — the nonprofit organization behind the Firefox web browser and other consumer gadgets and digital services — Surman has funneled most of his team’s efforts over the last five years into urging policymakers worldwide to embrace so-called “trustworthy artificial intelligence,” or pledges to use the technology for good. And now Mozilla, at Surman’s urging, is taking bets with its own venture funds, in-house tech incubator and other for-profit gambles to show the world there’s a business to be made with trustworthy AI. That includes putting things like human rights, data protection and transparency at the core of how these complex systems work — in comparison to how almost all AI companies (including the Big Tech players) currently operate. “We’re shifting gears into a broader approach on AI… in general,” he told Digital Future Daily. “We now have the commitment from all of our boards to figure out how we take our values and AI and build them into our thinking around what we do in the market as a social enterprise.” That includes a $35 million venture fund to take bets on fledgling AI firms that mirror Mozilla’s ethos on AI. It’s not a lot of money compared to the billions flowing into more mainstream AI startups, but the nonprofit’s goal isn’t to compete directly with OpenAI. Instead, the nonprofit is seeking so-called “responsible AI” firms that focus on accountability, trust and safety. Recent investments include SecureAILabs, a startup using AI to keep patient data safe. Mozilla is interested “more in use cases that matter for humans, but that aren't getting paid attention to,” Surman added. “So we invested in Lelapa, which is an AI startup for Africans by Africans.” The Mozilla chief says many parts of the world — particularly those with languages that have limited interaction with the vast libraries of data required to build legitimate AI systems for these communities — are underserved by the new generation of generative AI startups, leaving a wide gap for someone like the nonprofit to step into. Next is more in-house research and development on what trustworthy AI tools should actually look like. Surman said that years of lobbying politicians to take on the concept had left a hole in the market for people to make these principles a reality. Given Mozilla’s track record with the likes of Firefox, whose open source ethos contrasts to that of its larger rival, Google’s Chrome, he believes the nonprofit is primed to show what is possible. “We're looking across the board, moving from just the advocacy piece to we grow ourselves into being a player in the tech side,” he added. Surman is conscious that even his organization’s substantial resources pale in comparison to those available across Silicon Valley. Still, he is pitching Mozilla as a trusted player — based on years of its advocacy work attempting to quell the possible downsides to AI — to sit alongside the likes of ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. The goal is to leverage Mozilla’s relationship with policymakers and its sizable consumer tech know-how to show that trustworthy AI is a workable business, and that cementing human risks and tech accountability into this emerging technology can be a profitable business. “If AI is defining the next era of our digitized work, and we want our values to show up in that, we need both a market based strategy and a movement based strategy,” Surman said.
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