Artificial Intelligence as a Public Service: Learning from Amsterdam and Helsinki
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Artificial Intelligence as a Public Service: Learning from Amsterdam and Helsinki Luciano Floridi 1,2 Received: 18 October 2020 / Accepted: 18 October 2020 / Published online: 21 October 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
1 Introduction On September 28, 2020, at the Next Generation Internet Summit, Helsinki and Amsterdam announced the launch of their open AI registers. They are the first cities to offer such a service in the world (City of Helsinki 2020). The AI registers describe what, where, and how AI applications are being used in the two municipalities; which datasets were used for training purposes; how algorithms were assessed for potential bias or risks; and how humans use the AI services. The registers also offer a feedback channel, which is meant to enable more participation, with information about the city department and the person responsible for the AI service. The goal is to make the use of urban AI solutions as responsible, transparent, and secure as other local government activities, to improve services and citizens’ experiences. The AI registers are currently being populated. Anyone can check them. At the time of writing, there are 5 AI services available in the Helsinki AI Register1 and 3 in the Amsterdam AI Register.2 The plan is eventually to have all the cities’ AI services listed in the registers. At the moment, eight services are not many, but, despite their still limited number, the overall project is extremely interesting for several reasons, and one can learn a few lessons from it. Let us see them.
2 Why the Project Is Interesting 2.1 Normal AI Despite all the pointless but very distracting speculations about nasty robots, singularity, superintelligence, and other sci-fi dystopian stories, the sort of AI appearing in the 1
https://ai.hel.fi/en/ai-register/
2
https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/ai-register/
* Luciano Floridi [email protected]
1
Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK
2
The Alan Turing Institute, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK
542
L. Floridi
registers is, as expected, just ordinary digital technology, that deals with issues such as parking or reporting maintenance problems. This is how the project describes AI: Artificial intelligence refers to systems that observe the environment and process information in order to achieve, without guidance, the objectives assigned to them. In the case of city services, artificial intelligence may, for example, recommend books suitable for the library's customers or issue instructions for those consulting, for instance, childbirth & maternity counselling. Artificial intelligence also seeks, for example, easy and rapid access to information, identification of objects or people, appropriate recommendations or more efficient traffic control. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that artificial intelligence does not function in a vacuum or on its own. A person ultimately responsible for the operation of artificial intelligence is always needed to teach and supervise
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