PROGRAMME 5

DEVELOP ETHICAL AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS FOR AI IN SCOTLAND

Strategy Actions

1.4 We will identify the regulatory and financial levers Scotland has to realise the vision, such as funding and procurement and where we need to influence nationally and internationally.

3.12 If appropriate, establish an advocacy and recourse service for the people of Scotland

Year 2 Progress

Since the launch of Scotland’s AI Strategy, the global AI regulatory landscape has been developing rapidly. We have provided input into the UK Government’s AI Regulation White Paper, and their negotiations with the Council of Europe, to ensure that the views and interests of Scotland on AI are considered. While the EU AI Act continues to go through the EU legislative process, it is becoming clear that Scottish businesses and citizens will have to navigate a complex regulatory landscape to ensure that AI products and services are safe, trustworthy and ethical, and that citizen’s rights are protected. This is because AI operates across borders, and UK, EU and US jurisdictions are taking different approaches to regulation. We are encouraged to see that the EU and US have started work to maximise compatibility between their frameworks, and that the UK government is taking a pragmatic approach, though the latter also raises challenges.  

We believe that compliance with international standards will be essential for organisations to comply with future AI regulations effectively and efficiently. Therefore, we have joined the British Standards Institute’s ART/1 committee, which is the mechanism by which UK stakeholders feed into the development of key AI standards by bodies such as ISO and CEN/CENELEC. We are engaging with the new UK AI Standards Hub, a joint initiative of BSI, the Alan Turing Institute, the National Physics Laboratory and the UK Government; as well as with the UK Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation regarding AI assurance. We are collaborating with the Information Commissioner’s Office on the Scottish AI Playbook. We contributed to the German State of Hessen’s inaugural AI Quality Summit and sit on the expert council of their AI Quality and Testing Hub. 

We believe that the public sector has a unique responsibility and an opportunity to lead by example when it comes to trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI. Therefore, we are exploring the feasibility of incorporating best practice and internationally recognised standards into our AI procurement and contract processes, so that we can use our purchasing power to set a minimum standard for those companies who wish to work with us. We are also setting the bar in terms of transparency with the public with the launch of the Scottish AI register, an important step towards ensuring that the people of Scotland have a say in how AI is used to make decisions about them. We will use lessons learned from this to determine how best to enable citizens to protect their rights over the long term.