The purpose of the paper looked at today is to explain where China’s AI legislative framework has come from and, of more interest, where it’s heading.
The single most important point of the work is this: we’re going to hear more from China in future as a global industry regulator, standard setter and architect of A.I. for obvious and very good reasons.
Wayne Wei Wang (et al.), a PhD student at the Faculty of Law of the Hong Kong University takes us through the A.I. regulatory development process via case studies in the areas of autonomous driving and financial A.I.
Autonomous driving has gone from an industry which attracted initial policy support, then went through a controlled testing phase and is now on to a period of national standard setting and commercialization. An orderly and successful progression.
Financial A.I. is a different story. Initially robo-advisors were encouraged and flourished but problems broke out that needed address. Quantitative trading has seen more disciplined development and so too has the application of A.I. in credit services.
China is aiming, above all, for standardization for its domestic initiatives and where its businesses are going global, internationally too. A theme that runs through the work is because of China’s size and the size of its companies it creates an obvious centripetal regulatory effect.
China lacks a national A.I. law currently but is edging its way toward one via a ‘Model Artificial Intelligence Law’ and a draft of an ‘Artificial Intelligence Law of the PRC’ which are both in current circulation.
Why this process matters to the rest of the world should be obvious. If systems are to be interoperable they’ll have to be so with China. Therefore trends, standards and best practice mandated by legislation there will have a global impact on all companies operating in the space which increasingly just means ‘all’ companies worldwide.
The work is accessible via the following link Artificial Intelligence “Law(s)” in China.
Happy Sunday.