The GSMA’s AI ‘maturity roadmap’ claims to guide telcos towards responsible adoption

The purpose of the Responsible AI (RAI) Maturity Roadmap, as it’s called, is described in the release as allowing telcos to “assess where they currently stand in terms of their existing maturity in using AI responsibly against where they want to go, i.e. their ambitions and needs.”

Said telcos will be provided with guidance and measurement tools to help fulfil those ambitions. This bestowed wisdom has been developed via industry consultation and taking in existing global regulations, recommendations and standards from international organisations including the OECD, and the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, we’re told.  

The RAI Maturity Roadmap is based on five core underlying dimensions, which are listed as: “The vision, values and strategic goals of an organisation; its operating model and how to maintain AI governance across all operations; technical controls aligned with regulatory requirements; collaboration with third-party ecosystems; as well as corporate change management and communication strategies.”

Phew.

Based on self-assessment in these areas, the roadmap is supposed to guide firms to take ‘the appropriate steps to use AI responsibly relative to their level of maturity.’ 

The release also rattles off other principles somehow baked into the tool, including fairness, human agency and oversight, privacy and security, safety and robustness, transparency, accountability, and environmental impact.  

“The bigger the AI ambition an organisation has, the higher the level of Responsible AI maturity that should be implemented,” the GSMA explains on the tool’s site. 

The idea is if telcos are given clarity and a common approach to the ‘responsible use of AI’ – a concept which presumably is not universally locked down yet – they will feel emboldened to commit to its adoption ‘in the knowledge they are doing so in established, agreed and ethical ways, and therefore unlock the technology’s full value more quickly.’ 

“The transformative potential of AI has long been apparent but its integration in our work and our lives must be done in a responsible and transparent way for it to be truly effective and sustainable,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA. “This roadmap will now empower more MNOs to embrace AI in the knowledge they, in line with the whole sector, are doing so responsibly and ethically. Responsible AI is the right way to explore and unlock the many opportunities the technology presents, and the telecoms industry is proud to lead the way as the first sector to commit to this approach – we hope others will follow our example.”

Nineteen MNOs have apparently committed to using the roadmap, including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Telstra.

José María Álvarez-Pallete López, GSMA Board Chair and Chairman and CEO of Telefónica added: “The speed with which AI has now become a central part of tech and telecoms operations demonstrates its power and undoubted value, but also the risks we must consider as an industry and the need to include ethics at the heart of AI to prevent its uncontrolled development. It is crucial for us all to ensure responsible guidelines for the use of AI are implemented now, and it is great to see the telecoms industry leading the way on this with the GSMA’s new roadmap”.

The thing about a roadmap is that it relies on knowing categorically where the roads go –you don’t want any ambiguity as to whether taking the A556 exit on the M1 leads to Manchester or Oldham.

Nitpicking the phraseology aside, it seems unlikely even the companies that are pouring fortunes into building cutting edge AI platforms – of which the GSMA is not one – have a particularly strong handle on what the societal, economic and technological impacts might be in the decades to come, let alone what ethical posture to assume ahead of time.

The GSMA release cites McKinsey claims that the opportunity derived from the ‘expanded’ use of AI will be as high as $680 billion over the next 15-20 years. On the other hand, according to this CNN story some are apparently starting to ask questions about AI’s ability to make a return on the huge investments that are being made, at least in the short term.

That said, with some of the more pessimistic predictions around AI involving huge swathes of job losses and more grim outcomes besides, it’s probably good to be thinking about what the ‘ethical’ and ‘responsible’ implications of mass adoption may be, and hopefully come up with some bright ideas of how to mitigate the worst of them while taking advantage of the benefits. But a lot could happen in 20 years, and no one knows exactly where the AI road leads.