UK businesses suggest governmental actions in AI and IoT

UK business organisation CBI has published a report titled ‘Disrupting the Future’, which looks at how businesses can embrace artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the Internet of things. The report notes that companies have the potential to benefit from these technologies, as ‘the [IoT] unlocks big data, AI solves problems, [and] blockchain changes how businesses exchange value’. But the benefits can be slow, due to ‘limited adoption, regulatory hurdles, and a lack of business understanding’. In the field of AI, the UK government is invited to set up a joint commission, involving businesses, academics, and employee representatives, ‘to examine the impact of AI on people and jobs’, and make recommendations for action and policy. Other recommendations include governmental funding for tackling societal issues through the use of AI, availability of open public data, development of a set of terms and conditions of data sharing related to AI development. When it comes to IoT, it is recommended that the government supports the development of a voluntary Code of Practice with security and privacy principles. Local authorities are invited to explore the potential for IoT to ‘solve local challenges and lower costs’.