Part I: Fundamental Concepts
By the end of this part, learners will be able to:
- define artificial intelligence from a legal perspective and associate that definition with technical concepts;
- distinguish the various technical components that are articulated in the design and operation of AI system;
- illustrate various modes how an AI application might fail to work as expected; and
- articulate how safety and security issues create risks to data protection and other fundamental rights.
These days, AI technologies seem to be everywhere. They appear in personal tools such as the personal assistants in our smartphones, in business tasks such as automating human resources processes, in government practices such as tax fraud detection, and everything in between. With such widespread applications, AI is relevant to the work of data protection professionals in organizations of the most varied sectors and sizes.
Analyses of the impact of those technologies face various obstacles. It can be difficult in practice to figure out how those systems work, given their reliance on complex mathematical models and computer science techniques. Organizations might also struggle to pin down the kinds of personal data used within a system and the legal bases that authorize the processing of that data. Often, organizations might not have clear answers even to more fundamental questions such as How does the output of an AI system affects things in practice? or even Is AI used here at all? Answering these questions demands not only an understanding of what makes AI unique from a technical standpoint. It also requires understanding the legal and economic factors that restrict how organizations can obtain information about the AI systems they use and develop.
Part I of this course offers the conceptual foundations needed for such analyses. Over four chapters, it discusses key factors that must be considered for evaluating the data protection implications of AI technologies:
- 1 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Data Protection situates AI as a data protection issue, highlighting the risks and opportunities that AI technologies create for the protection of fundamental rights, as well as the legal framework that applies to them.
- 2 Core Concepts of Artificial Intelligence provides a bird’s-eye view of technical concepts related to AI, defining key concepts without going into technical details.
- 3 Cybersecurity Aspects of Artificial Intelligence then provides a brief introduction to the cybersecurity dimension of AI, highlighting risks that are unique to those technologies.
- Finally, 4 The Safe Use of Artificial Intelligence discusses how AI technologies might produce undesirable effects even if they are adequate from a cybersecurity standpoint.
The knowledge covered in these chapters will then support the legal analyses discussed in the rest of the book.