 Good afternoon and welcome to you, the audience, to today's IIEA webinar, and a particular welcome to our speaker, Robert Troy TD, Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation. Sentient machines have long captured human imagination, and intelligent robots and computer systems are perhaps the most constant theme in the science fiction genre throughout its history. But technological advances in artificial intelligence are now raising issues for policymakers that once only the writers of science fiction needed a ponder, AI has the potential to change everything from the way we live and work to what it means to be human. In July 2021, Ireland's Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment launched the Here for Good National Artificial Intelligence Strategy for Ireland. In his address to the IIEA today, Minister Troy will discuss how the government's national AI strategy will ensure a responsible and inclusive approach to developing, applying and adopting AI. Minister Troy will also outline how Ireland seeks to harness the potential benefits of AI for business and society. The minister will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so, and then we'll go on to a short Q&A with you, the audience. I should flag that owing to unforeseen diary commitments and a requirement to be in the door chamber at two o'clock, the minister will have to leave us at 1.30, so do get your questions in good and early. You'll be able to do that using Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. A reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. Before giving the floor to the minister, let me briefly introduce him. Robert Troy has been the Minister of State for Trade, Promotion, Digital and Company Regulations since July 2020. He is a phenophore TV for Longford West Mead and was the first elected to the All-Irelander 2011. He's been a phenophore front bench party spokesman on numerous briefs, including for business enterprise and innovation. He's also served on the Iraqis Committee on Business Enterprise and Innovation. Minister, thank you for joining us again over to you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you for that introduction. And can I start off by thanking the IIEA for the invitation to speak this afternoon? I think it's fair to say that the IIEA have been to the fore in driving debate and discussion in public policy for decades. And the institution plays a crucial role in facilitating the sharing of ideas and looking ahead to emerging topics and trends in Europe and indeed a further afield. The establishment of the Digital Future Group as part of the IIEA shows your foresight and how important the whole digital agenda is for Ireland and indeed for Europe. So I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to talk at such an important forum about Ireland's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, AI, here for the good. The government developed this strategy to provide a high level direction to the design, development, deployment and governance of AI in Ireland. The title is AI here for the good and reflects our ambition to harness AI as a positive force for transformation. It is one of the most promising digital technologies and it has already been used across the world. It's not a technology of the future. It is very much a technology of the present. It is changing the way we work and live, opening up new ways to address problems in almost every single field. The government's vision is for Ireland to become a leading country in using AI to the benefit of our citizens through a people-centered and ethical approach to AI adoption and use. We want to use transformative technologies like AI to help us in creating the economy and the society that we would like to live in. Greener, more productive and technologically responsive. But we need to create the right conditions for the technology to flourish. This strategy will serve as a roadmap for achieving this. The strategy will help define how Ireland can ensure a responsible and inclusive approach to developing, applying and adopting AI and how to harness the potential benefits of AI for business and society. It can help to address challenges in areas such as climate action, public health, education, housing and urban development amongst others. And while government will play a key role in facilitating and enabling AI for good, this is a journey that's going to involve all of society. The strategy is an important step in Ireland's journey towards becoming a leading international hub for responsible and ethical AI. Underpinning our strategy are three core principles to best embrace the opportunities of AI. One, adopting a human-centric approach in the application of AI. Two, staying open and adaptable to new innovations. And three, ensuring good governance to build trust and confidence. So innovation can flourish. This is because ultimately, if AI is to be truly inclusive and have a positive impact on all of us, we need to be clear on its role in our society and ensure trust is the ultimate marker of success. With these guiding principles, it is our ambition to put Ireland at the frontier of a people-centered, ethical and responsible role out of AI. This will further enhance Ireland's reputation as a place where it pays to invest in innovation. In terms of a very brief overview of the strategy, it has been structured along three broad categories. Building public trust in AI. Leveraging AI for economic and societal benefit. And enablers for AI. And under each of these categories are eight strands covering areas such as AI and society, education and skills, supporting a strong ecosystem and promoting trustworthy AI. I won't go into great detail on each specific, but I encourage you to read it if you have not already done so. There are, however, a couple of areas I would like to pay particular attention to today. And it is no surprise, given my role, I'll start with AI and enterprise. Crucial for economic recovery. A strong enterprise focus runs throughout the strategy. AI can help to create a more prosperous economic economy with better and more fulfilling jobs. Many Irish businesses are already harnessing AI in a variety of ways. Using it to improve productivity, to gain a better understanding of customers, and to offer better quality products. We want to support more businesses to benefit from AI and help businesses already using AI to achieve more sustainable growth through trustworthy AI. We will do this by building an Ireland's capabilities, its drive and community of indigenous supply chain SMEs, and the presence of world leading software and ICT industries. One of the lessons that Irish businesses have learned over the past 20 months is how effective digital technologies can be as a tool to reach their customers and to connect with their staff. As we move into the recovery, it is important that we build on that digital transformation. To boost the uptake of digital technology, including AI in enterprises, the government has set up the Digital Transition Fund. This is an 85 million euro multi-annual fund, which will run right up until 2026 as part of Ireland's national recovery and resilience plan. The funding will be used to help companies at all stages of the digital journey, from transitioning online for the first time to digitalization of products and businesses processes, from facilitating exporting to using digital technologies to develop new markets and business models, as well to support businesses in adoption of AI technologies. As an enterprise ecosystem, Ireland has significant strengths that set us up for strong leadership position in the application of AI. Most of the global technology companies have established a presence here. We have an agile and highly skilled workforce, a record of scientific excellence, and a strong innovation ecosystem. There are opportunities to achieve even more spillover effects from these global companies to Irish-owned SMEs. As part of the EU's digital decade, Ireland will work to increase the amount of companies not only using AI, but also cloud computing and big data to help SMEs in adopting AI and digitalization. The European Commission, together with each member state, is establishing a network of enterprise of European digital innovation hubs to play a central role in stimulating the broad uptake of AI, high performance computing and cybersecurity, as well as other digital technologies by industry, as well as by the public sector. The Irish government is committed to establishing a number of these European digital innovation hubs in Ireland under this initiative, and a competitive process has already been launched to identify candidates for national European digital innovation hub status. These hubs will serve as one-stop shops to provide upskilling, innovation, and advisory services to enterprises and public authorities in areas aligned to AI, as well as offering access to technical expertise, research facilities, and experimentation. The hubs will act as SME incubators, providing access to infrastructure, technologies, and testbeds. At the core of each of these innovation hubs will be a research and technology organization or higher institution lab. And while all these digital innovation hubs will provide valuable resource for the SMEs on AI adoption ladder, one of the successful candidates will be specifically designed as a national artificial intelligence digital innovation hub. This hub will take on the role of the national first stop shop for AI, acting as the point of contact for businesses in engaging with AI adoption and with the AI innovation ecosystem. Under the AI strategy, an enterprise digital advisory forum will be established to advise and work with government to drive enterprise adoption of digital technologies, including AI. As chair of this new forum, I want to be able to hear directly from enterprise, both large and small, AI experts, academia, and our state agencies about the challenges and the opportunities that businesses have in terms of digital transformation. The board will also advise and work with government to drive enterprise adoption of AI, including true, assessing the current spectrum of AI resources available to industry from technology centers and relevant agencies to maximize the potential of existing infrastructure, developing an AI program for enterprise of targeted funding measures together with diagnostic tools and other advisory supports around AI adoption, raising awareness among businesses of all sizes from small SMEs to the multinationals of the resources available from the European digital innovation hubs, our centers of excellence, and developing a national AI cluster or platform to drive collaboration between the multinationals and the SMEs. We are currently running an expression of interests process to fill this forum and the closing date is this Friday, the 12th of November. So I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage anyone who's on this webinar today. If you are interested in being part of that advisory forum and advising government going forward on the adoption of digital technologies, you will find out more on the department's website, but as I said, closing date is this Friday. Right throughout the development of the strategy, my department and I engaged with a variety of stakeholders to inform Ireland's position. I wholeheartedly believe that this level of engagement should continue because the more people who understand and trust the potential of AI, the more who will embrace it. In particular, I believe there should be meaningful engagement on the development, governance and use of AI. While it may not be immediately visible to the public, the state is already using AI to address important societal issues. For example, in the areas of environment and climate action, health and social inclusion. AI must be developed and used with trust, transparency and accountability. By making human rights and ethical principles a key focus of one of the eight strands of this strategy, Ireland is making a commitment to ensuring that AI based systems and solutions developed and used in this state are trustworthy, fair and inclusive. It is vital we listen to people's views and embed AI in society in ways that respect and promote diversity, inclusion, equality and non-discrimination. Building public trust and engagement with AI will be essential to the overall success of this strategy. With this in mind, the government will soon appoint an AI ambassador to promote awareness among the public and businesses of the potential that AI offers, serving as a champion of AI as a positive force for the economy and society and emphasizing that ethical approach. Disappointment has been carried out through an open expression of interest process, again with full details on my department's website and again the closing date is this Friday. And of course, if anyone is interested, I'd encourage you to engage with the process. To inform the work of the AI ambassador, my department will shortly begin a discussion on young people's attitudes, concerns and visions for an AI-powered future through the forum of Corlyn and Oagh to ensure that the next generation views and opinions are part of the national conversation. As I said at the outset, Ireland is committed to an AI approach which is responsible, ethical and trustworthy. This will require an agile and appropriate governance and regulatory environment across three key areas, legal, ethical, standard certification to ensure safeguards are in place to protect human rights and equality. Our strategy is in favour of a governance and regulatory framework that avoids setting unnecessary barriers to responsible innovation. It considers that the adoption of an agile and collaborative approach which sets out high level principles and involves a range of governance and regulatory mechanisms, while leaning upon incremental learning, research and experimentation will serve to future proof or response to ongoing developments of AI. We will continue to play an active part in discussions at EU level to define a horizontal regulatory framework for AI and we will also join the OECD Global Partnership on AI. We will continue to advocate with other multilateral for it for an ethical and human rights based approach to AI. Mechanisms for voluntary and self-regulatory oversight of AI will be considered for non-high risk AI. For example, pilot programmes, standards, labelling and certification schemes and regulatory sandbox. Other policy tools such as impact assessments, industry-led codes of practice and ethical guidelines will also be used. In driving public service adoption of AI, Ireland's GovTech delivery board will consider appropriate safeguards to ensure the use of AI within the public service is consistent with ethical principles and with human rights obligations. There is already a well-developed expertise in AI standardisation here in Ireland and we have established a top team of standards for AI in 2020 with the ambition to expand Ireland's international leadership in AI standards development. Led by the NS AI, the top team is working with academia, industry and regulators to develop a roadmap for AI standards and assurance. AI is already being used across the public service and there are opportunities to scale the impact of AI in the public service through a coordinated approach to adoption. Government will leverage the potential of AI to assist in achieving excellence, innovation and improve productivity in the delivery of public services and in other key activities. For example, AI applications can contribute to better public services by improving citizen-government interaction, enabling smarter analytical capabilities and increasing efficiency. The GovTech delivery board, which has been established to drive digital transition in the public service, will lead on AI adoption in the public service. Significant work has already been undertaken by government to advance the digitalisation of public services from developing overarching strategies to investing in enabling infrastructure and technologies, for example, the National Broadband Plan, revenue online service, digital postbox. This means that many essential enablers for the AI strategies are already in place. Some of the areas where we see the most potential for AI in the public sector are in health, agriculture and revenue and work continues at pace as to how to do establish and deploy digital systems in these areas. To conclude, I want to thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you today. Our strategy is an important step in Ireland's journey towards becoming a leading international hub for responsible and ethical AI, where new ideas and technologies are tested and contribute to make an Ireland fairer, greener, more prosperous and more successful in the global marketplace. I thank you again.