The report, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards: A Review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life’ (pdf, no opt-in, 78 pages), said the government was ‘failing on openness’, although adding that fears over ‘black box AI’, whereby data produces results through unexplainable methods, were largely misplaced.

“Public sector organisations are not sufficiently transparent about their use of AI and it is too difficult to find out where machine learning is currently being used in government,” the report notes. “It is too early to judge if public sector bodies are successfully upholding accountability.”

The report advocated the use of the Nolan Principles – seven ethical standards expected of public office holders – in bringing through AI for the UK public sector, arguing they did not need reformulating. Yet in three areas – openness, accountability, and objectivity – the report said current standards fell short.

Of the 15 overall recommendations the report made, many focused around preparation, ethics and transparency:

• The public needs to understand the high level ethical principles that govern the use of AI in the public sector (currently the FAST SUM Principles, the OECD AI Principles, and the Data Ethics Framework)
• All public sector organisations should publish a statement on how their use of AI complies with relevant laws and regulations before they are deployed in public service delivery
• A specific AI regulator is not needed, however a regulatory assurance body should be formed to identify gaps in the regulatory landscape and provide advice to individual regulators and government on the issues associated with AI
• The government should use its purchasing power in the market to set procurement requirements to ensure private companies developing AI solutions for the public sector meet the right standards
• The government should consider how an AI impact assessment requirement could be integrated into existing processes to evaluate the potential effects of AI on public standards
• The government should establish guidelines for public bodies about the declaration and disclosure of their AI systems

Commenting after the report’s release Alex Guillen, technology strategist at IT services provider Insight, noted the recommendations were feasible, but put this alongside a word of caution.

“Introducing AI into government while still following the Nolan Principles should be perfectly possible,” Guillen told AI News. “First, the public sector needs to remember that currently, the most effective uses of technologies such as AI and machine learning act to enhance, rather than replace, human workers. Helping public sector workers make more informed decisions, or act faster, will not only improve public services; it will help satisfy the 69% of people polled who said they would be more comfortable with public bodies using AI if humans were making the final judgement on any decision.

“However, regardless of how AI is used in the public sector, it needs to be treated as an employee – and given the training and information it needs in order to do its job,” Guillen added. “As with any technology that relies on data, garbage in means garbage out. From facial recognition in policing to helping diagnose and treat patients on the NHS, AI needs the right data and the right governance to avoid causing more problems than it solves.

“Otherwise any implementation will be dogged by ethical concerns and accusations of data bias or discrimination.”

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Feng Liu, Yong Shi, and Ying Liu put their test to AIs from Google, Apple, and Microsoft. The AIs scored as follows:

• Google: 47.28
• Baidu: 32.92
• Bing: 31.92
• Siri: 23.9

Google leads the pack comfortably according to the results. Baidu and Bing are a comfortable distance behind. Siri’s result is the most notable as it trails its competitors significantly with almost half the score of Google.

To calm those concerned about the potential AI apocalypse forewarned by the likes of Elon Musk — even Google’s score was relatively low compared to humans.

For comparison, the average score for a six-year-old in the researchers’ test is 55.5. For an 18-year-old, the average result is 96. This shows, at least for the time being, humans still have the advantage when it comes to general knowledge (…unless you’re under six, maybe.)

The gap is closing quickly, however. Earlier studies by the group show a rapid improvement over a relatively short period of time. Back in 2014, Google and Baidu put up scores of 26.5 and 23.5 respectively.

Once again, this posts Siri in a rather bad light. Google’s (and almost Baidu’s…) score back in 2014 was higher than Siri’s in the latest study.

The results are in-line with those found in another study posted by our sister publication IoT News. In that study, Siri also fell significantly behind Google and Microsoft in the ability to answer general knowledge questions.

The full research can be found here for your perusal.

What are your thoughts on the results of the study?

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