Standards for AI

AI Act standardization request

In 2023, European standardization bodies CEN and CENELEC have accepted a standardization request on Artificial Intelligence from the European Commission. Joint Technical Committee 21 (JTC21) of CEN-CLC is currently developing European standards which, in the future, would be able to provide manufacturers the presumption of conformity with the upcoming AI Act. As a member of Dutch standardization body NEN, Algorithm Audit contributes to the European debate how fundamental rights should be co-regulated by product safety. We do this by participating in the following working groups of JTC21:

WG2 – Risk management systems
WG3 – Engineering aspects
WG4 – Trustworthiness framework.

During last JTC21’s plenary meeting in Dublin 12-14 Feb in Dublin, Algorithm Audit presented below slides on Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) and the need for inclusive, deliberative stakeholder panels to deploy responsible AI.

Standards

The standardization request of the European Commission, that will provide a presumption of conformity with the AI Act, relates to ten aspects:

Risk management systems for AI systems
Governance and quality of datasets used to build AI systems
Record keeping through logging capabilities by AI systems
Transparency and information provisions for users of AI systems
Human oversight of AI systems
Accuracy specifications for AI systems
Robustness specifications for AI systems
Cybersecurity specifications for AI systems
Quality management systems for providers of AI systems, including post-market monitoring processes
Conformity assessment for AI systems.

In our audits, Algorithm Audit incorporates all of the above aspects, except 8. Cybersecurity specifications for AI systems. Organisations can learn from our technical and normative audits reports that are made publicly available. The full standardisation request of the European Commission can be found here.