Exploring generative AI guardrails: The Tines approach

Written by Thomas KinsellaCo-founder & CCO, Tines

Published on June 30, 2024

In the rapidly advancing world of generative AI, deploying models in an enterprise setting presents unique challenges. From hallucinations to security dilemmas and legal concerns, the need for robust guardrails has never been more pronounced. But what exactly are these guardrails? How should they be built and implemented to ensure safety and reliability, especially in high-stakes environments?

Innovation rarely starts with acknowledging the restrictions. It’s only after you’ve fleshed out the practical concepts that you begin to understand how they can align with the predefined boundaries, ensuring that your final product is both useful and compliant. This dynamic process encourages a more organic pathway to discovery, leading to solutions that are not only innovative but also viable within the given constraints. In addition to allowing for more creativity and experimentation, we’ve found this approach also delivers greater value to customers.

At Tines, we prioritize security and privacy by design, emphasizing the importance of guardrails to prevent AI from taking unwanted actions, misinterpreting data, or having excessive autonomy. Let’s take a closer look at why AI guardrails matter and what makes Tines a leader in secure and reliable AI implementation.

What are generative AI guardrails? 

AI guardrails are critical measures implemented to ensure the safety, privacy, and reliability of AI systems. These guardrails are essential to:

  • Reduce the risk of AI-generated "hallucinations" or false outputs.

  • Address trust and data privacy concerns by ensuring AI follows predefined rules.

  • Mitigate legal and compliance risks associated with AI decisions and actions.

One of the primary types of guardrails focuses on privacy. In general, think of any systems that leverage AI as a database. Just as you wouldn’t submit your private company data to a completely public database, you shouldn't submit your data to an AI system that can train on it.

Another crucial area where AI guardrails are being applied is to prevent real-world harm. This involves configuring AI systems to avoid providing harmful or dangerous advice. These guardrails are essential to maintain the integrity and safety of AI responses, protecting people and ensuring compliance with safety standards.

Who should be responsible for AI guardrails? 

This is an evolving field with its own limitations. Ultimately, all companies that produce AI tools or AI-enhanced features have a responsibility to establish proper guardrails and protect user data. There's an ongoing conversation about extending these safeguards to the training phase of AI development. In my opinion, any companies that are creating a large language model that could potentially be used to cause real-world harm must do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. There's no room for accidents in this regard.

Governments should also bear some of the responsibility to regulate and extend existing regulations to effectively oversee the world of AI. But this won’t be plain sailing; regulations will vary globally, and some countries may progress faster than others as a result.

Tines' approach to AI and data privacy 

At Tines, we understand that the value of AI lies in your ability to trust it. Our approach centers on privacy and security, making them essential components of our AI features. We don't train, log, inspect, or store data that goes into or comes out of the language model. Input data is used solely for generating responses. Essentially, these measures ensure that your interactions with AI in Tines will never come back to compromise your privacy or be utilized in other inappropriate contexts.

Additionally, Tines is built on Amazon Bedrock and AWS PrivateLink. With Amazon Bedrock, your data isn't used to enhance the base models and isn't shared with any model providers. AWS PrivateLink allows us to establish private connectivity without exposing your data to internet traffic. This means all of your data is protected inside your Tines workflows.

Our whole approach to our AI features centers on customer trust and our belief that the ideal AI workflow solution should possess the following attributes:

  • Internal infrastructure: The AI operates within your infrastructure, avoiding internet exposure and public accessibility.

  • Access to top language models: Availability of the best language models, including open-source options.

  • Strong security guarantees: Assurance of no logging or training of user data.

  • Scalability and ease of setup: The solution should be easy to set up and capable of scaling almost infinitely.

With our commitment to adhering to these principles, Tines ensures the highest standards of data security and privacy while leveraging AWS Bedrock's advanced capabilities to deliver powerful, scalable, and secure AI-driven features.

Taking your trust seriously  

By focusing on security, privacy, and robust guardrails, we provide a reliable AI-enhanced workflow solution that you can depend on. Whether you're leveraging AI to analyze suspicious messages, explain alerts in plain language, transform case management data, or any other critical function, Tines ensures that your AI operates safely and effectively.

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