EY Study: Disagreement Exists Between Companies, Policymakers on Future Direction of AI Governance

A new EY study has found significant differences in how companies and policymakers look at the future of ethics, regulation and governance of artificial intelligence platforms.

EY said Tuesday it surveyed 284 companies and 71 policymakers across 55 countries between 2019 and early 2020 for the Bridging AI’s trust gaps report and found that discrepancies exist in privacy and data rights, data access, innovation and fairness and avoiding bias.

The survey showed that only 6 percent of policymakers agree that the private sector should spearhead a multistakeholder approach to guide the future direction of AI governance, while 38 percent of companies said they believe that approach should be led by the private sector. The disagreement poses challenges for policymakers and companies in advancing AI governance and presents regulatory and market risks for AI product developers.

Nearly 70 percent companies agree that regulatory agencies understand the business challenges and complexities of AI, while 66 percent of policy developers disagreed.

“As AI transforms business and industries, poor alignment diminishes public trust in AI and slows the adoption of critical applications,” said Nigel Duffy, global AI leader at EY. “For efforts to be fruitful, companies and policymakers need to be aligned. Coordination between both sets of stakeholders is critical to developing pragmatic policy and governance approaches that are informed by constraints and realities on the ground.”