Artificial intelligence is exciting. It’s also potentially dangerous. Black box “magic” isn’t acceptable now that companies are moving from the “fun” phase of playing with AI’s capabilities to implementing the technology in essential business workflows.

“Every company in the world is looking for the opportunity to take advantage of AI to improve their business processes, whether it’s to improve their revenue, lower their cost profile, or lower their risk,” said Nenshad Bardoliwalla (pictured), chief product officer at DataRobot Inc.

Bardoliwalla spoke with Dave Vellante and David Nicholson, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed DataRobot’s AI Cloud and self-service AI. (* Disclosure below.)

DataRobot opens AI algorithms for inspection

The danger of AI is that algorithms aren’t infallible. Trust is provided through transparency and explainability, which together allow data scientists to see into the workings of the AI’s “mind” to understand how it arrived at insights.

“For example, the system says, this customer has a high likelihood of churn. Why? Because their account balance has been declining over the last five months [and] because their credit score has been going down,” said Bardoliwalla, explaining how the machine communicates its processes in understandable language and vernacular.

DataRobot’s AI Cloud platform, which launched in September, extends trust by providing democratic access to AI, not only through transparency and explainability, but by opening the code for inspection and allowing professional data scientists to review and modify code. DataRobot pioneered the automated machine learning movement and, over the past decade, invested one-and-a-half-million engineering hours in creating the platform.

“AI Cloud is about this pervasive tapestry, bringing together the creators, the consumers, the individuals who operate these systems into a single system that can lower the barrier to entry for people who don’t have the skills, but allow you to plug in and go deep underneath the covers and modify whatever you need to if you have that level of technical skill,” Bardoliwalla said. “The beauty of the model is that customers can choose how much they want to let the machine drive or how much they want to let the human being drive.”

Like any democratic realm, the AI Cloud needs governance in addition to freedom and flexibility, according to Bardoliwalla. And while the two can coexist, it is a delicate balance.

“The way that you get to self-service — with governance — is to have the right controls and policies and frameworks that surround the self-service model with the right checks and balances that implement the segregation of duties,” Bardoliwalla stated.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: DataRobot Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither DataRobot nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE