International Journal of Information Technology

Vol. 26 No. 2 2020

Editorial for

International Journal for Information Technology (IJIT)
Special Issue on AI Ethics and Governance Body of Knowledge (AI E&G BoK)

Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a disruptive technology, has revolutionized our world leaving its mark on all major sectors, e.g. finance, education, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and industry. It has bee widely adopted by organizations in order to help understand their business, enhance efficiency, reduce cost, automate production, or aid humans in the decision making process. As such, AI is considered as one of the most important engines for the future economy.

With increased use of AI, comes increased scrutiny. Experts around the world and now looking at what is now known as AI Ethics, how data used in AI systems are collected, and how the resulting data and recommendations are generated, concerned about the potential for misuse of data as well as the possibility of biased decisions based in imperfect data. AI Ethics has drawn public attention with more and more countries/organizations setting up frameworks/rules/guidelines of AI governance. According to Singapore’s National Strategy, AI needs to be deployed and used in a responsible way, least public trust be broken.

With this background, based on “Model AI Governance Framework 2.0” by IMDA, Singapore, the AI Ethics and Governance Body of Knowledge (AI E&G BoK) has been developed to sustain and support industry adoption of responsible AI. The BoK aims to explain the principles of AI Ethics/Governance as defined in the Model Framework as – 1) Human-centric and 2) Transparent, fair and explainable, as well as guide organizations and professionals on how to implement and deploy responsible AI solutions.

This special issue of IJIT is a gathering of the most representative works in AI Ethics and Governance BoK, bringing together the research and industry to discuss the principles and best practices of AI ethics and governance. This issue covers 4 main topics:

1. AI Governance

2. Human Centricity

3. Ethical Data Management

4. AI Explainability

In this special issue, we gratefully thank the contribution from guest editor Raju Chellam. I hope that the work here can help raise public awareness on AI ethics and aid both organizations and professional in following the guidelines as depicted in the AI E&G BoK in order to implement and use AI in a responsible manner.

Yours Sincerely

Chunyan Miao, Chief Editor