Accelerating AI with Standards
In April 2019, NSAI hosted international experts in Dublin for a plenary meeting to develop ISO Standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI). The committee of experts, known as ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42, gathered to discuss use cases, methodologies and ethical concerns about AI to establish a globally agreed way for organisations to confidently adopt the game-changing technology in years ahead.
The plenary meeting was a proud moment for NSAI and brought to life the importance of AI on Irish shores. As our organisation holds the secretariat of the working group on Trustworthiness and stages several key contributing experts, Ireland has a prominent seat at the table when it comes to the development of Standards in AI.
Two years on, the committee has successfully published seven documents. AI is at the intersection of many different fields, and this is reflected in the diversity of topics covered so far by the group: Five of the committee’s publications make up the ISO/IEC 20547 series, covering big data and its reference architecture. Meanwhile another Technical Report, ISO/IEC TR 24028:2020, provides an overview of factors to ensure that AI remains a trustworthy technology. The most recent document, ISO/IEC TR 24029-1:2021, is a Technical Report summarising the methods available to assess the robustness of neural networks. Together with the committee’s upcoming publications, these Standards will shape the use of AI in industry and society all over the world.
At national level, NSAI is prioritising Artificial Intelligence standardization. Deviating from the usual Standards creation workflow of waiting to adopt the agreed European Standard, NSAI is accelerating the process by directly adopting these international documents as Irish Standards. It is hoped that our participation will encourage Irish society, academia, governing bodies, and businesses – big and small, across many sectors – to harness and trust the power of the technology.
From both a global and Irish perspective, strides are being made to advance AI as a widely used and accepted technology in society and industry. Stay tuned!
