Accountability in the Age of AI

A Conversation with Frits Bussemaker from I4ADA

Author

AI For All
November 30, 2023

Hello readers!

On this week’s podcast, Ryan and Neil speak with Frits Bussemaker, Chair of the Institute for Accountability in the Digital Age, about accountability in the age of AI and the need for local and international AI governance. Businesses are handcuffed to a degree because they want to avoid investing in a technology that could see ever-changing regulation. Learn where we are today in this new episode!

Why You Won’t Want to Miss This

  1. Understand the growing concerns about the rapid advancement of digital technologies, including AI, outpacing legal and regulatory frameworks, and the need for tools and technologies to ensure accountability and governance.

  2. Recognize how the concept of accountability has evolved, especially with incidents like the GDPR-triggered lawsuit in Spain and the increased reliance on digital technology during COVID.

  3. Get insights into the challenges of developing AI governance, where efforts are fragmented and uncoordinated, leading to a growing consensus on the need for a unified approach, possibly led by the United Nations.

  4. Understand the role of ethics in AI governance and the attitudes around the proposition of a universal, baseline ethics for AI.

  5. Learn about the need to localize AI governance to align with existing national legislations, while being aware of the complexities and challenges posed by international applications of AI technology.

Our Favorite Moment

“Believe it or not, but we have almost 600 frameworks and standards for how we can regulate AI. Choose whatever you like. There are too many. So having standards, having a regulatory system, I think that's not the question. We already have that. What I like about accountability is it makes you look in the mirror. What are you going to do as an individual or as an organization? And all the finger pointing, we need a government, we need a framework, that in itself is not going to solve the accountability. It's going to help you maybe as an instrument, but it's not going to help you actually be accountable.”

— Frits Bussemaker

Accountability in the Age of AI

Meet Frits Bussemaker

Frits Bussemaker is the Chair of the Institute for Accountability in the Digital Age, an association instigated by UNESCO in 2017 aimed to help define tools for and manage accountability in the digital age. Bussemaker has been working in the international ICT industry since the 1980s. He began with a Dutch IT startup and held various marketing and alliance positions including at CIONET, where he represented a community of over 7,000 CIOs with international institutes like the European Commission. He is the initiator of the Global Digital Leader Alliance linking over 20,000 digital leaders from China, Europe, India, Japan, South America, and the US.

Learn More About I4ADA

The Institute for Accountability in the Digital Age (I4ADA) was founded in 2017 with the mission to ensure that issues and concerns do not undermine the Internet’s potential for increasing access to knowledge, spreading global tolerance and understanding, and promoting sustainable prosperity. In pursuit of its mission of helping the world derive maximum benefit from the internet, the Institute is dedicated to helping create a fair and balanced framework of best practices and, where necessary, regulation.