Mapping global approaches to AI governance
Today Nesta is launching a new pilot project ‘Mapping AI Governance’, an information resource about global governance activities related to artificial intelligence. It features a searchable database, a map and a timeline of AI-related governance activities, such as national strategies, regulations, standardization initiatives, ethics guidelines, and recommendations from various bodies. We want to use the map as a way of advancing discussions on AI governance and regulation, as well as helping researchers, innovators, and policymakers gain a useful tool to better understand what’s happening around the world.
Artificial intelligence, often referred to as “the new electricity” is poised to drive economic growth and development over the next decades, contributing to the solution of some of the world’s most pressing problems. However, the risks and downsides of unchecked AI deployment, highlighted by examples of biased algorithms, increased profiling, or the Cambridge Analytica scandal, demonstrate an urgent need for better governance frameworks. In response, more and more governments around the world are crafting national AI strategies and committing significant amounts of funding to enhance their research capacity, boost their innovation ecosystems, support the up/reskilling of their labour force and create innovation-friendly regulations that mitigate against the harms of AI.
Other key focus areas are open data initiatives and the establishment of test environments and sandboxes for the safe and speedy development of AI applications. Industry actors are also engaged in self-regulation, mostly expressed in the form of AI ethics codes or advisory bodies, however, it is unclear to what extent such codes actually influence company practices, or how far the remit of ethics bodies extends. In the absence of binding norms, self-regulatory measures outside industry are emerging as well, which seek to establish a set of values and practices as ethical minimums, such as the Safe Face Pledge, the Global Data Ethics Pledge, or the Lethal Autonomous Weapons Pledge.
It is safe to say that a wide-ranging consensus has emerged around what the most pressing issues are, namely: fairness, accountability and transparency, as well as making sure that the use of AI systems upholds fundamental human rights. The next step is to really begin the tricky job of translating general principles into regulations and standards.
