The EU recently published a draft proposal for a giant and comprehensive legal regime governing “AI systems”. Although only applicable to the EU and not post Brexit UK, many think it has the potential to become a global “gold standard” regime in the same way the GDPR has become for personal data governance.
This “AI Act” has many interesting aspects and raises many questions:
- How do we define AI?
- What is a “high risk” AI system?
- Should any AI systems be completely banned?
- Can we certify ethical AI systems in the same way the EU has already with some success passed laws to mandate products as safe (“CE” ) kitemarking?
- Would this place impossible demands on developers and indeed, users?
- How would all this interact with existing laws, local and international?
On 17 June we were joined by leading technology law academic, Professor Lilian Edwards and Womble Bond Dickinson Legal Director Malcolm Dowden to explore and try to summarise these and other issues around the proposed EU AI regulation.
Agenda
Welcome | Steve Caughey, Director, National Innovation Centre for Data
Keynote| The proposed EU AI regulation - an overview | Professor Lilian Edwards, Newcastle University
Fireside chat | Malcolm Dowden, Womble Bond Dickinson and Prof. Lilian Edwards
Q&A with Professor Edwards
Wrap Up | Steve Caughey, Director, NICD
Featured Speakers
Professor Lilian Edwards
Newcastle University
Lilian Edwards is a Scottish UK-based academic and frequent speaker on issues of Internet law, intellectual property and artificial intelligence. She is on the Advisory Board of the Open Rights Group and the Foundation for Internet Privacy Research and is the Professor of Law, Innovation and Society at Newcastle Law School at Newcastle University.
Lilian is a leading academic in the field of Internet law. She has taught information technology law, e-commerce law, privacy law and Internet law at undergraduate and postgraduate level since 1996 and been involved with law and artificial intelligence (AI) since 1985.
Malcolm Dowden
Legal Director, Womble Bond Dickinson
Malcolm is a commercial and regulatory lawyer with extensive experience of contractual regulatory and legislative drafting in the UK and other common law jurisdictions. Since qualifying in 1994 Malcolm has advised commercial, government and public sector bodies on a wide range of issues affecting electronic communications, transport, infrastructure and other development projects.
Malcolm is an internationally-accredited provider of legal and professional training. He has designed and delivered training on issues such as contract risk management, contractual and statutory drafting and regulatory policy in the UK, Africa, South-East Asia and India. In 2013, Malcolm was appointed lead training consultant to the Law Society of England and Wales International Division, and more recently he has delivered training on Public Private Partnership laws and contracts on behalf of UKTI and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Prosperity Fund in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa.
