Department has tasked the IT sector professional body with leading a newly established group of stakeholders who will be asked to help drive collaboration and support assurance of new technology
Government has teamed up with professional body BCS to establish a consortium of experts that, over the coming months, will fulfil a remit to draw up an ethical code to inform the work of employees in the technology sector.
The AI Assurance Stakeholder Consortium has been officially convened by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and will be led by the membership body – which is formally known as BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
The group will feature representatives from a range of expert bodies related to AI, who will work together on various core objectives intended to help bolster trust in technology, and support future growth.
According to BCS, the consortium’s to-do list will include the creation of “a voluntary, professional code of ethics” as well as “a skills and competencies framework”. The group will also undertake “work to map information access requirements for AI assurance providers” while supporting “collaboration across sectors to raise the visibility, credibility and quality of AI assurance services”.
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The consortium will be chaired by BCS fellow Emma McGuigan and will also feature members from: the UK Accreditation Service; British Standards Institution; National Physical Laboratory; Ada Lovelace Institute; and Chartered Quality Institute.
Also taking part will be two independent experts – Adam Leon Smith and Professor Dame Wendy Hall from the University of Southampton – and the core collective’s work will be assisted by “range of observers and an Industry Advisory Group, led by techUK”.
AI minister Kanishka Narayan said: “If we want Britons from every walk of life to seize the benefits AI offers, they need to be able to trust it. AI assurance is going to be a massive part of our efforts to put AI to work boosting businesses, improving public services, and creating opportunities for people. The UK already has all the ingredients needed to build a world-class AI assurance sector. This new consortium will spearhead those efforts. Together we can make the UK the most trusted place in the world to develop, deploy and assure AI.”
The BCS’s McGuigan added: “AI assurance is no longer a niche issue, but is becoming essential infrastructure for an economy that wants to adopt AI confidently, responsibly and at scale. The consortium will focus on practical steps that help organisations understand what good AI assurance looks like, from professional ethics and skills, to the information needed to assess AI systems properly. Our ambition is to support a trusted, credible and globally respected AI assurance profession that helps unlock innovation while protecting people, organisations and society.”