Govt hopes for ‘mature, world-class’ sector, but doubts linger over regulation
The UK government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) has published a “roadmap” designed to create an AI assurance industry to support the introduction of automated analysis, decision making, and processes. The move is one of several government initiatives planned to help shape local development and use of AI – an industry that attracted £2.5bn investment in 2019 – but it raises as many questions as it answers. Part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), the CDEI said by “verifying that AI systems are effective, trustworthy and compliant, AI assurance services will drive a step-change in adoption, enabling the UK to realise the full potential of AI and develop a competitive edge.” Launching the move, DCMS minister Chris Philp said: “The roadmap sets out the steps needed to grow a mature, world-class AI assurance industry. AI assurance services will become a key part of the toolkit available to ensure effective, pro-innovation governance of AI.” How that governance will take shape is, as yet, a bit fuzzy while the industry waits on proposals for AI legislation in the forthcoming White Paper on governance and regulation. Whatever laws the assurance industry is expected to mitigate against breaching, the idea is that third-party AI assurance providers will offer reliable information about the trustworthiness of AI systems, according to the launch document. The “roadmap” – awful word, we know – calls for all players in the AI supply chain to “have clearer understanding of AI risks and demand assurance based on their corresponding accountabilities for these risks.” “AI assurance will be critical to realising the UK government’s ambition to establish the most trusted and pro-innovation system for AI governance in the world, set out in the National AI Strategy,” the document says. Elsewhere in Whitehall, the Central Digital and Data Office has developed an algorithmic transparency standard for government departments and public-sector bodies. Working with the CDEI, the standard would be piloted by several public-sector organisations and further developed based on feedback, it said.
