Understanding the challenges and potential of AI applications

Image by Tung Nguyen from Pixabay

Whether it be detecting fraud or early-stage cancers, powering chatbots or controlling traffic signals, artificial intelligence (AI) applications are evolving and growing at record speed. So much so that, according to PWC, AI is expected to contribute a mind-blowing USD15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

International standards provide a solid foundation on which AI technologies and applications can safely and responsibly grow, and the joint IEC and ISO technical committee for AI, SC 42, already has more nearly 30 standards and as many more in development.

A key focus of the committee is to constantly study and explore the market and use of AI to understand what new technical requirements are needed.

ISO/IEC TR 24030 is the result of some of that research and has recently been updated. The new version details more than 80 use cases of AI in a wide variety of domains, including agriculture, e-commerce, healthcare, media and entertainment, transport and more.

Examples include an application that can detect pickpockets in a crowd; a system that forecasts crop yields using information such as crop rotation history and weather data; emotion-sensitive customer service applications; an intelligent marking system for exams in the education sector; machine learning algorithms to detect collusion-based fraud; and an application for predicting relapses in dialysis patients during treatment.

Each use case details challenges and issues, trustworthiness considerations, threats and vulnerabilities and where standards can help.

Project editor Yuchang Cheng said the document illustrates the benefits of standardization across a vast number of application domains and helps to increase understanding and collaboration of AI's potential and challenges in different industries.

"By investigating how AI is used in different industries, we can more easily identify what gaps there are in terms of technical specifications and make plans to fill that gap. This can then accelerate technological advancements in a safe and responsible way."

SC 42 Chair Wael William Diab added: "ISO/IEC TR 2030 is one of a number of SC 42 standards that take into consideration ethical and social concerns such as privacy, security and sustainability. This is important to enable broad, responsible adoption of AI that can realize its benefits while minimizing the risks. Having a diverse and vast set of use cases ensures that the portfolio of standards that SC 42 develops are applicable to virtually all industry sectors and applications, making them truly horizontal."

SC 42 develops international standards for AI, taking a holistic approach to consider the entire AI ecosystem. It looks at technology capability and non-technical requirements, such as business, regulatory and policy requirements, application domain needs, and ethical and societal concerns.

The committee organizes regular workshops on AI to discuss emerging trends, technology, requirements and applications as well as the role of standards. They bring together innovators at the frontier of AI development from diverse locations, sectors and backgrounds involved in research, deployment, standardization, startups, applications and oversight.

Hear more from Wael William Diab about SC 42 in this video.

The next workshop will be held on 3 and 4 June. Details coming soon.