Over 80 participants from all over the world met at the “AI and the Rule of the Roundtable” in Athens, Greece, on September 21 and 22, to debate the trustworthiness of developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the standards for those who use it.
Earlier this year, the Council of Europe and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) convened to set standards for using AI in the legal industry, and came up with four guiding principles: effectiveness, competence, accountability, and transparency. On the tail of that progress, the IEEE, the law firm Covington & Burling, the Future Society, and the European Law Observatory on New Technologies all co-sponsored this roundtable event with the underlying goal “to move from principles to practice.”
Participants discussed “hot-button” topics, like whether, and to what extent, governments or oversight bodies like bar associations should regulate the legal application of AI technology or if regulation should resemble more of a free-market, “self-certification” system. Reports indicate a consensus around the trustworthiness principles and the need for a legal framework to implement them. However, there are still some disagreements as to whether the technology is ripe for such regulation. People also agree that both those who use and those who are affected by AI in the legal arena need to have a basic understanding of how the technology works.
Given the nebulous uncertainty that currently shrouds the prospect of AI regulation and the rapidly developing nature of the technology, organizers are hopeful that conversations like this will continue as the field advances.
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