Dubai, February 2, 2020 – The Smart Dubai Department has reported that its Ethical AI Self-Assessment Tool has been used on 18 use cases in the emirate, including 15 initiatives by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) and three AI Lab use cases developed with the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), and Dubai Customs.

The Smart Dubai Department launched The Ethical AI Guidelines to enhance government services and promote adoption of Artificial-Intelligence-based solutions. It provides a wide range of guidelines for AI use cases, which establish greater transparency and accountability for individuals and institutions providing AI services in Dubai .

Her Excellency Dr Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, Director General, Smart Dubai Department, said: “Artificial Intelligence is gathering momentum around the world, with credible studies predicting the sector could contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy in 2030. The UAE has long led the region and much of the world in embracing and employing AI, from appointing a Minister of State for AI to the launch of the ambitious UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.”

“As the government entity tasked with transforming Dubai into a full-fledged smart city, the Smart Dubai Department has been at the forefront of efforts to both embrace and regulate the technology,” H.E. explained. “While there is an unofficial consensus that AI regulation is needed, the field is not mature enough to devise fixed rules or laws to govern it. This is where our Ethical AI Toolkit comes in with its guidelines and the Ethical AI Self-Assessment Tool. Setting clear guidelines and principles on the ethical use of AI will prevent a fragmented approach to ethics.”

“We applaud the Dubai Government entities that have embraced the guidelines and benefitted from the assessment tool, making great headway in developing their projects and services to meet the standards of the smart city of the future,” Dr Aisha added.

For his part, H.E. Younus Al Nasser, Assistant Director General of Smart Dubai Department and CEO of Smart Dubai Data (SDD), said: “Artificial intelligence has evolved into a sector of its own – one with a staggering growth momentum. As more of our everyday tasks get automated, more AI-powered breakthroughs and services are in the pipeline. This large-scale proliferation of a once niche and experimental technology calls for setting principles to regulate and guide the sector.”

“The Guidelines and the Ethical AI Self-Assessment Tool were developed for that particular purpose – to create consistency and avoid having every entity set its own rules,” H.E. Al Nasser added, “We are happy to see our initiatives evolve into more of a universal framework that determines ethical requirements for AI design and use, where successful projects and use cases are underway at various government entities in Dubai. Our objective is for the guidelines to eventually serve as a blueprint for governments to draft pragmatic AI laws and regulations.”

The Roads and Transport Authority was the first government entity to adopt Smart Dubai’s Ethical AI Toolkit, making it mandatory for all of its AI-powered systems. The Authority applied the self-assessment tool on 15 AI-related projects and initiatives, where the tool helped identify ethical gaps that had previously gone unnoticed. The RTA staff reported that the tool had helped them learn more about the transparency and accountability of AI systems, which, in turn, makes it easier to navigate the complicated topic of AI ethics.

The Smart Dubai Department’s AI Lab uses the Ethical AI Self-Assessment Tool across all projects it has under development. The toolkit assessed various initiatives for ethical considerations, including AI-powered systems developed by the DHA to detect and quantify deterioration in patients’ conditions in emergency rooms; a cognitive school finder service developed by the KHDA, and a risk engine for declarations by Dubai Customs.

Since their launch in January 2019, the Ethical AI Guidelines and the Self-Assessment Tool have registered a total of 17,178 visits across all Ethical AI Guidelines’ pages on the Smart Dubai Department’s official website.

The AI Self-Assessment Tool sheds light on numerous issues related to the ethical use of AI, including the need to understand the quality and accuracy of the data that feed the algorithms used in artificial intelligence; how to be transparent and explain highly complex forms of artificial intelligence to people who are affected by the decisions they make; and how to insert ethics into the professional development of AI developers so they create safe, fair, and responsible AI systems.

The new figures were revealed at a meeting of the AI Ethics Advisory Board, where members discussed and finalised the future direction of the Smart Dubai Data team’s efforts to promote safe and ethical AI applications in 2020.

The AI Ethics Board explored the Smart Dubai Department’s plans to improve the current Ethical AI Guidelines, with several additional AI tools and projects in the pipeline, geared towards helping AI developers produce safe and responsible AI applications that meet high, world-class standards of explainability, fairness, and privacy.

The Smart Dubai team had conducted several usability study sessions on the Ethical AI Self-Assessment Tool, which brought together representatives from across the Artificial Intelligence ecosystem in Dubai. In the same vein, a consultation was carried out to explore various opportunities to improve the Guidelines, registering valuable feedback that will be used to further improve the Tool.