A University of Turku led consortium has received two-year research funding from Business Finland to study and develop governance mechanisms for artificial intelligence (AI). The total budget of the industry-academia consortium is ca. 4.5 million euros.
The AIGA programme focuses on reinforcing the trustworthiness, transparency, and explainability of algorithmic decision-making through AI governance. The AIGA programme and studies and develops with the industry partners’ governance models and mechanisms for artificial intelligence and how to commercialise AI governance and auditing for international markets.
– The AIGA programme is a unique opportunity and a first-class partner network to study and develop governance models for AI well as the services and the business ecosystem emerging around responsible AI, says the Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Matti Mäntymäki from Turku School of Economics.
– We expect that, in the long run, the AIGA programme creates products and services that in the future reduce the risks of organisations producing and using AI applications. The programme has a positive effect on the business of the entire Finnish AI network, says Head of AI Business Outi Keski-Äijö at Business Finland.
Trust, Transparency and Supporting Regulation Needed in Algorithmic Decision-making to Succeed
Algorithms are taking over an increasing share of decision-making in both private and public sector.
– This holds also for decisions having direct effect on people’s lives and health, for example, in the context of traffic and healthcare. Therefore, it is important that people can trust the decisions and decision-making processes in which the algorithms have participated, Matti Mäntymäki continues.
– Trust in decisions made by algorithms calls for not only regulation but also importantly capability to open up the algorithmic decision-making process in a way that is understandable for humans. There is an increasing EU-wide societal pressure to make decisions made by AI more transparent. This in turn will create a market for solutions enabling executing responsible AI in practice, summarises Professor of Practice Teemu Birkstedt.
The AIGA programme addresses a topical societal challenge and works towards creating a market for products and services for responsible AI. The programme creates new knowledge on the governance, auditing, explainability, and transparency of algorithmic decision-making, particularly AI.
The main funding body of the AIGA programme is Business Finland. The timespan of the project is two years. The AIGA consortium partners are the University of Turku and University of Helsinki, DAIN Studios, Talent Base, Solita, Siili Solutions and Zefort, and the Finnish Tax Administration. The University of Turku AIGA team is cross-disciplinary including researchers from Turku School of Economics, Department of Future Technologies, and Faculty of Law. The programme collaborates with the leading companies in the field such as Saidot Ltd.
