Tencent’s new “Tech for good “ vision

China’s Tencent is going on centre stage for its vision of ethics in artificial intelligence in a break with the company’s traditional reclusive style.

It changed it favoured approach to ethics that combined not only socially beneficial use of AI for medical purposes or agriculture but also a social contract between companies and users to govern the use of personal data.

“As our company gets larger in significance in our position in society, we should begin to question what is the soul of the company “ Seng Yee Lau, Tencent’s senior vice president and chairman of global branding and group marketing said.

LU’s Chinese philosophy “tech for good’ Came from within the individual rather than enforced by governments.

Tencent created its AI for social Good platform in January 2018, before Google launched programme with the same name said Dant Gal of Cyber Civilisations Research Center at Keio University in Tokyo.

Tencent runs WeChat , the messaging and payment platform that forms the bedrock of China’s of internet. Mr Lau praised EU’s general data protection regulation saying it “was a huge inspiration” for Tencent.

“Billions of users have entrusted us with their personal sensitive information. This is the reason we must uphold our integrity above the requirement of the law. As a Chinese company starting from a social network business , we actually care more about user privacy. He added.

Tencent also invested in Phytech a farming company that uses data to optimise crop cultivation, Mr Lau said.