DSIT publishes AI playbook

The playbook in question contains 10 guiding principles of AI use, including its efficiency potential and ethical, legal, privacy, sustainability, and security risks, to guide civil servants on best practices and safe usage.

As part of the launch, the DSIT said: “AI is at the heart of the UK Government’s strategy to drive economic growth and enhance public service delivery.”

The playbook expands on previous guidance provided to public sector officials and covers a wide range of AI technologies including machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and speech recognition. 

“The AI Playbook and recent public sector investment in AI technology is an encouraging step to arming civil servants with the tools they need to maximise AI’s potential and drive significant efficiency across public services,” said Michael Thornton, Senior Director, Public Sector, Investigo. “As part of AI adoption in the public sector, departments should balance attracting the next generation of AI-proficient civil servants alongside temporary experts to lead implementation projects and training

“Even before the advent of widespread AI adoption, there was a gaping skills crisis engulfing UK PLC and public sector organisations, so we need to see continued resources being invested into AI in order to equip the public sector with AI tools they need to succeed.“

“AI has great potential to overhaul public sector efficiency driving time and cost savings across tasks such as forecasting, data analytics and fraud detection, but the ethical and privacy concerns should still remain front and centre,” added Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of AI Research, Zoho Corporation. “It’s encouraging to see DSIT’s focus on this in the AI Playbook, outlining the potential ethical, legal, privacy, sustainability and security risks of AI, ensuring civil servants have a deeper understanding of the AI systems they are using.”

It also contains explanations of AI technologies, sample use cases, and corporate guidance for policy professionals.

This follows news that both the UK and US declined to sign a global AI pact at the AI Action Summit in Paris while other nations including France, China and India all endorsed the initiative, which promotes an AI framework that is open, inclusive and ethical. 

The EU AI Act, which seeks to regulate the industry, came into effect two days prior to the Summit and outlines banning AI applications such as using it for social rating software, predictive policing to estimate an individual’s likelihood of committing an offence, and emotion recognition tools for employee or student behaviour.