Legal risks are keeping Government bodies from embracing AI, survey shows

Fears over the legal risks of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) are acting as a barrier to Government bodies adopting the technology, a National Audit Office (NAO) report has revealed.

The NAO surveyed all the main Government departments and the majority of arm's length companies with annual operational expenditure over approximately £83 million. 

The survey showed that AI is not yet widely used across government, with just over a third of the 87 responding bodies (37%) having already deployed AI, with typically one or two use cases.

The NAO asked respondents, among other things, what they thought the largest barriers to adoption were and found the legal risk of using AI was the third most pressing concern keeping them from adopting the technology, with 67% of the respondents agreeing it was a barrier.

Meanwhile, around 70% of respondents agreed that 'difficulties in finding and retaining staff with AI skills' was a barrier.

Around 70% of respondents also labelled 'lack of funding for development and/or implementation of AI' as a barrier.

Concerns around security risks, including risks to privacy, data protection and cyber security breaches, also featured (with around 56% of respondents listing them as a barrier), as well as risks of inaccurate outputs (57%), for example, due to bias, discrimination or disinformation.

In order to aid implementation, Government bodies said support was important to address the barriers and to share knowledge about how AI is being used.

Around two-thirds of respondents felt support from the centre was very important to address legal risks (70%) and risks to privacy or data protection, or cyber security breaches (63%). Over half felt support to address risks to the accuracy of outputs (for example, from bias, discrimination and disinformation) was very important (56%).

The Head of the NAO, Gareth Davies, said: "AI offers government opportunities to transform public services and deliver better outcomes for the taxpayer.

“To deliver these improved outcomes government needs to make sure its overall programme for AI adoption tackles longstanding issues, including data quality and ageing IT, as well as builds in effective governance of the risks.

“Without prompt action to address barriers to making effective use of AI within public services, government will not secure the benefits it has identified.”

The NAO added that achieving wide-scale benefits will require changes to business processes, as well as tackling ageing IT infrastructure, risks, skills gaps, and data issues.

Adam Carey