AI-901 - Identify AI concepts and capabilities - Section 1.1

Describe the principles of responsible AI and the consideration each addresses in an AI solution.

The six Microsoft responsible-AI principles and what each guards against: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. The most-tested skill is matching a stated concern to the correct principle. Transparency (making a system and its decisions understandable to the people affected) and accountability (people staying answerable for how the system behaves, with governance and oversight) are the pair most often confused.

fairnessreliability and safetyprivacy and securityinclusivenesstransparencyaccountabilityMicrosoft responsible AI principles

Practice question for this objective

Free sampleIdentify AI concepts and capabilitieseasy

A retailer is standing up governance for its AI systems and wants to be clear that specific people in the organisation remain answerable for how each system is designed, operated and its outcomes. Which Microsoft responsible AI principle does this describe?

  • ATransparency
  • BAccountability Correct
  • CReliability and safety
  • DFairness
Accountability is the responsible AI principle that people remain answerable for an AI system through governance and oversight. Accountability places responsibility on people: it requires that humans stay answerable for how a system is designed, operated and governed, which distinguishes it from transparency, the principle about making the system understandable.

Why A is wrong: Transparency is the closest distractor because both involve responsible oversight, but transparency is about making the system understandable, whereas accountability is about who answers for it.

Why B is correct: Accountability is the principle that people, not the AI itself, remain answerable for a system through governance and oversight of its design, operation and outcomes, which is exactly the retailer's aim.

Why C is wrong: Reliability and safety is tempting because governance often covers risk, but it concerns dependable and harm-minimising operation, not establishing who is answerable for the system.

Why D is wrong: Fairness is a plausible governance concern, but it addresses equitable treatment of people in a system's outcomes rather than assigning human responsibility and oversight for the system.

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