11 Nov 2024

techUK Paper - Ethics in Action: From White Paper to Workplace

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techUK is excited to release its new paper demonstrating how the ethical principles that underpin the AI White Paper are being operationalised within the industry through AI Assurance Techniques and Standards, often referred to as tools for trustworthy AI.

AI has significant potential to drive economic growth by enhancing productivity, creating new market opportunities, and enabling more efficient business processes. However, to fully realise these benefits, companies need to embed trustworthiness into their AI solutions.

However, several practical challenges exist in this journey to bridging the gap between ethical principles and their practical implementation. Companies, especially SMEs, often struggle to interpret broad ethical guidelines into specific operational practices, balance innovation with ethical considerations, and navigate rapidly evolving technical capabilities and regulatory standards. The tech industry has made significant strides in addressing these challenges, creating internal governance structures, training programs, and assessment tools. However, there is more to be done to make ethical AI implementation accessible and achievable for organisations of all sizes across all sectors.

This techUK paper aims to address these challenges by showcasing the critical role of AI Assurance tools in supporting the responsible adoption of AI. Following the UK government's recent report on AI assurance services, which projects that the UK's AI Assurance Market could add over £6.5 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) within the next decade, this paper highlights the value of these tools in making ethical AI more achievable.

techUK's paper offers practical insights, tools, and examples from industry best practices that demonstrate successful achievement of each principle. It aims to offer organisations information as they explore practical approaches to implementing these principles.

This paper is not a static document but a living resource, open to feedback at this year’s Digital Ethics Summit and contributions from the community, with plans to review and update it in 2025. We hope it serves as a valuable insight for businesses, policymakers, and practitioners alike as they navigate this rapidly evolving landscape.

We extend our gratitude to techUK’s Digital Ethics Working Group for their valuable feedback and case study contributions.

Sue Daley, Director of Tech and Innovation, said:

techUK welcomes the Government’s commitment to the pro-innovation and pro-safety approach set out in the AI Whitepaper. Demonstrating how this approach can work in practice means bridging the conceptual gap between the ethical principles themselves and how organisations can operationalise and implement these principles in practice. This techUK paper provides valuable information and insights into the AI assurance strategies, approaches, mechanisms, tools and established assurance techniques and standards available today to support organisations to practically implement the AI White Paper principles and through examples brings to life how this can be done.

Sue Daley

techUK

For more information please contact:

Tess Buckley

Programme Manager - Digital Ethics and AI Safety, techUK

Tess is the Programme Manager for Digital Ethics and AI Safety at techUK.

Prior to techUK Tess worked as an AI Ethics Analyst, which revolved around the first dataset on Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR), and then later the development of a large language model focused on answering ESG questions for Chief Sustainability Officers. Alongside other responsibilities, she distributed the dataset on CDR to investors who wanted to further understand the digital risks of their portfolio, she drew narratives and patterns from the data, and collaborate with leading institutes to support academics in AI ethics. She has authored articles for outlets such as ESG Investor, Montreal AI Ethics Institute, The FinTech Times, and Finance Digest. Covered topics like CDR, AI ethics, and tech governance, leveraging company insights to contribute valuable industry perspectives. Tess is Vice Chair of the YNG Technology Group at YPO, an AI Literacy Advisor at Humans for AI, a Trustworthy AI Researcher at Z-Inspection Trustworthy AI Labs and an Ambassador for AboutFace.

Tess holds a MA in Philosophy and AI from Northeastern University London, where she specialised in biotechnologies and ableism, following a BA from McGill University where she joint-majored in International Development and Philosophy, minoring in communications. Tess’s primary research interests include AI literacy, AI music systems, the impact of AI on disability rights and the portrayal of AI in media (narratives). In particular, Tess seeks to operationalise AI ethics and use philosophical principles to make emerging technologies explainable, and ethical.

Outside of work Tess enjoys kickboxing, ballet, crochet and jazz music.

Email:: [email protected]
Website:: tessbuckley.me
LinkedIn:: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tesssbuckley/

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Sue Daley

Director, Technology and Innovation

Sue leads techUK's Technology and Innovation work.

This includes work programmes on cloud, data protection, data analytics, AI, digital ethics, Digital Identity and Internet of Things as well as emerging and transformative technologies and innovation policy. She has been recognised as one of the most influential people in UK tech by Computer Weekly's UKtech50 Longlist and in 2021 was inducted into the Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK Tech Hall of Fame. A key influencer in driving forward the data agenda in the UK Sue is co-chair of the UK government's National Data Strategy Forum. As well as being recognised in the UK's Big Data 100 and the Global Top 100 Data Visionaries for 2020 Sue has also been shortlisted for the Milton Keynes Women Leaders Awards and was a judge for the Loebner Prize in AI. In addition to being a regular industry speaker on issues including AI ethics, data protection and cyber security, Sue was recently a judge for the UK Tech 50 and is a regular judge of the annual UK Cloud Awards.

Prior to joining techUK in January 2015 Sue was responsible for Symantec's Government Relations in the UK and Ireland. She has spoken at events including the UK-China Internet Forum in Beijing, UN IGF and European RSA on issues ranging from data usage and privacy, cloud computing and online child safety. Before joining Symantec, Sue was senior policy advisor at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Sue has an BA degree on History and American Studies from Leeds University and a Masters Degree on International Relations and Diplomacy from the University of Birmingham. Sue is a keen sportswoman and in 2016 achieved a lifelong ambition to swim the English Channel.

Email:: [email protected]
Phone:: 020 7331 2055
Twitter:: @ChannelSwimSue,@ChannelSwimSue

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