PROGRAMME 7

DEVELOP AI INVESTMENT PLAN

 
 
 
A photographic rendering of a young houseplant against a neutral background, seen through a refractive glass grid and overlaid with an single neuron from a neural network diagram.
 
 

Image: Alan Warburton / © BBC / Better Images of AI

YEAR 1

1.5 Develop horizon-scanning capability to identify high growth companies, opportunities and key international benchmarks 

2.4 Develop a national and international engagement plan targeting future talent, businesses and potential investors. 

2.5 Develop a plan to better leverage investment, research and development funding 

3.3 Building on the success of our AI Climate Emergency Challenge, establish an AI for Good Programme to help solve some of the most significant challenges facing our society 

 

AI is a diverse and dynamic area and continues to grow at pace. We have built on research conducted during the Strategy’s development to produce a database of AI strategies and key developments. This will initially be used by the Scottish AI Alliance Support Circle, which will further develop it, as well as exploring opportunities to link in with horizon scanning and developing awareness activities in progress elsewhere. 

Engagement can be challenging, and although we have not made as much progress as we had hoped for, we have been able to build on existing links and make some new connections. In late 2019, we started to take forward developing and implementing a plan for international engagement on AI. While AI is the primary focus of this, we recognise that there are clear interdependencies and synergies with other Scottish Government policies and programmes.  

In light of this, we aim to take a collaborative approach to deliver both our specific AI-related international engagement aims, and to connect with interdependent programmes of work where our efforts can contribute to, and support, achieving broader objectives. We have started work on developing an AI international engagement plan, which will continue to be shaped and delivered through collaboration. 

Recognising that we are stronger when working with others, we have established a working group to advance coordinated international engagement on AI, with a range of delivery partners, such as Scottish Enterprise. This joint approach will also help us in taking forward our action to better attract and harness investment, both for businesses seeking to start-up and scale-up, and for the research and development of next generation AI technologies.  

 

AI for Good Programme 

Our AI Climate Emergency Challenge showed the potential of AI to help address climate change and unlock environmental value. This initiative has demonstrated how we can accelerate progress on applying AI to address key challenges.  Building on this, and we are now taking forward an AI for Good Programme that identifies opportunities for government to catalyse innovation or address market failure at the intersection of: 

  • priority policy areas for the Scottish Government (such as climate change, or child poverty) - the “vertical” dimension  

  • a cross-cutting AI issue that is an enabler of our vision for trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI (such as explainability, or public trust and agency) - the “horizontal” dimension 

This means that in Scotland, AI for Good is not a standalone programme (all of the AI work we support is “good”), but rather a way of prioritising investments and resources to deliver impact in key areas using the type of AI we want to see in Scotland. It isn’t a top-down government programme either. Instead, we focus on co-developing solutions to complex, shared problems, between the public, private and third sectors and our citizens. For each project, we tailor the delivery mechanism to maximise impact and value for money, such as grants or procurement, and our AI team acts as a convenor to connect those who own the challenges within government and public bodies with the innovators of AI solutions in the private and third sector. 

A good example of this approach is our CivTech® Challenge on public trust and agency (horizontal dimension) in the use of AI by the public sector, with a focus on children’s rights (vertical dimension) (see Programme 8 and Programme 9 for more details). 

Our next AI for Good initiative will be announced at the AI Summit. Our initiative on AI and disability (vertical dimension), specifically on using AI for inclusive access to public services (horizontal dimension) will be launched officially in May 2022 as a CivTech® challenge. We will launch further initiatives in the coming year.