When looking at the forecasted revenues of the AI market worldwide from 2018 to 2025 we see from $10 billion in 2018 to $126 billion in 2025. The business upside is significant, however with potential growth of this magnitude, risk and government regulation was inevitable.
Governments around the world today see AI as a great enabler to accelerate business opportunities. AI Innovation will continue to flourish; however, governments are putting in place regulation for automated decisioning and have been working behind the scenes for years on how best to implement AI regulation. GDPR (2018) was an early indicator from the EU as to what’s coming down the line for AI.
Here are new EU guidelines for AI: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai
In addition, the ICO (Information Commissioners Office UK) has been collaborating with various academic institutions and AI thought leaders on the subject of regulation and is now proposing to regulate AI: https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/research-and-reports/project-explain-interim-report/
One of the largest AI markets in the world, the US (FTC) is proposing more stringent regulation: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2020/04/using-artificial-intelligence-algorithms
The interesting aspect of regulating AI is that all governments regardless of implementing their own regulation have the same goal. To ensure, AI is fair, ethical, transparent and explainable.
Within the real world many enterprises have been working with AI for many years, building in house systems and using cloud vendors to accelerate business outcomes. To date, AI regulation has merely been a side show at the executive table.
During 2020 we see Explainable AI and AI Regulation top of mind at the executive table.
Any Enterprise business building out AI has imminent and important choices to make:
- Carry on as is and run the risk of government fines (up to €20M or a maximum of 4% of total company revenues). Global companies are already facing the music
- Re-write their playbook for AI and incorporate global government regulation
- Evaluate existing AI investments i.e. What will meet imminent regulation? Focus on higher value tasks that are in production and no longer experiment for sake’s sake
Enterprises increased their AI spending by some 62% in 2019 and 55% are now on the AI journey.
Over $35 billion was spent globally on AI in 2019 and this is expected to grow significantly until 2025, therefore if you’re an enterprise looking to AI for future growth then meeting the needs of impending global government regulation should today be a strategic priority.
We would be delighted to answer any questions / enquiries you may have in relation to Explainable AI and adherence to global government AI regulations.
