Artificial Intelligence

and the
Future of Public Policy
Prof.dr. Caspar van den Berg
Chair in Global and Local Governance
University of Groningen / Campus Fryslân
@casparvdberg
Programme
• The dual relationship between digitization and public policy:
“Regulating AI in society” and “Data-driven policy making”

• “What will policy making look like 30 years from now?”

• What bounderies for AI and DDP?

• An agenda for public leadership: (a) practical wins, and (b) tough
questions
Background and interest in
Digitization & Governance
• Studies: IR, comparative politics, comparative public policy
• PhD: Multi-level governance: The impact of EU-integration on
national politics and administration
• Recent research: Public sector reform, (the policitization of) policy
advice
• Digitization as the greatest driver for change in society and thus in the
public sector
• Under-theorized and under-researched in my discipline
Digitization and Public Policy: a dual relationship
Public policy on the digitization: Public policy through digitization:
Regulating AI in society Data-driven policymaking
Evolution: Evolution:
• 18th-19th C: First Industrial • Until ca. 1850: Based on autocratic rule
Revolution: steam engine • From ca. 1850: Based on ideologies, group-interests
• 1870-1914: Second IR: • From ca. 1900: Informed by modern statistics
electric power • Ca. 1930-70s: Modern social planning,
• From 1980s: Third IR: technocratization
Internet • From 1950s: Adaptive policies, incremental learning
• From 2010s: Fourth IR: • From 1990s: Evidence-based policymaking
Artificial Intelligence • From ca 2010: Data-driven policymaking
Putting the novelty in perspective
Regulating AI in society Data-driven policy making

• Business as usual: Many parts of • Business as usual: Learning from

AI are presently covered by past experience through feedback
loops (formulating, implementing,
other legislation, e.g. existing evaluating, calibrating), is common
privacy, competition, and IP law practice, just the feedback loops
• Game changer: A new field of have become increasingly shorter
law is emerging: AI law and • Game changer:
privacy law are becoming the • Relevant data often not in the hands
of public authorities
defining legal fields of our time. • Speed may cut our policy planning
from policy cycle, and political
mandating and accountability
Governments key dilemma’s
Regulating AI in society
• Protect of individual rights
• Regulate markets
• Stimulate of economic growth
Data-driven policy making
• Deliver effective and efficient,
high-quality and low-cost public
services (create public value)
• Cultivate the other criteria of
good governance, e.g.:
democratic input, legality,
integrity, equality before the law,
accountability
Policymaking in 30 years from now
• Policy planning will have been replaced by real time policy adaptation
• Territorial scale of policy is less national and more either supra-national
(regulatory frameworks) or metropolitan (daily urban systems)
• Policies will much less have the shape of measures and action
programmes, and more principles and purposes
• Policy in the tradidtional sense will focus on countering the undesisable
consequences of DDP outcomes
• The distinction between public service delivery agencies and private sector
contractors will decrease. More hybrid datacenters-cum-public-service-
providers will emerge.
• Policy will be developed in equal measure by three groups of experts:
substantive experts, data-experts and political-legal-policy experts.
Winners and losers - Horizontal
Between actors at one level of government:
• Policy making units and policy implementation agencies mostly
separated since 1980s-90s reform: Flexibility and insulation from
politics
• Future: Policy implementation gets more policy discretion and
political steering becomes less effective. Informational advantage of
the implementation actors, based on their experimenting and use of
algorithms: Implementation agencies win, policy making units lose.
• Challenge: Political control over policies, both input and
accountability?
Winners and losers: Vertical
Between levels of government.
• Further hollowing out of the nation-state:
• Private actors operating in / dominating AI systems are global, therefore regulation
makes most sense on the supra-national level
• Public service by means of AI are likely to have the most impact in local and
metropolitan scale communities: safety and security, social services, transportation.
Therefore, as a knock-on effect of AI, it is likely that a sense of social and political
community at the subnational level
• Therefore, the hypothesis would be that AI will strengthen the supra and
subnational levels of government at the expense of the national
government.
• Challenge: Potential further drift between policy-community and political-
community
What boundaries for AI and DDP?
• The question is not what can be done with digital data (AI
experts), but what should be done with digital data (politics,
policy and ethics experts)

• So the boundaries are:

• Partly ethical (fairness, social justice etc. + who decides what is
ethical?)
• Partly political à
The political boundaries of DDP
• How to guarantee political control and accountability over DDP when
implementation systems adapt policies in real time?
• DDP may strengthen the problem-solving function of policy, but not the
political-symbolic function: elected politicians will want to realize political
priorities and serve their constituencies.
• The tension: If DDP prescribes decision A (technically superior option), but
in order to deliver on political promises prescribes B (politically optimal
option), which will prevail?
• Political courage necessary to embrace DDP. Accidents will happen.
• Question: How can business, academia and civil society help public
leadership to take the risk?
An agenda for public leadership (I of II)
Promote a more data-oriented culture within the public sector workforce.
• Eliminate old jobs that will become redundant, create new jobs, and let
existing job tasks and content evolve. People will need to develop new
skills.
• This includes data-scientists but just as much data-oriented experts from
social science and humanities.
• Adopt AI itself where possible, to develop expertise and understanding
• Partner with academia, business and civil society to reduce risk and share
responsibility
An agenda for public leadership (II of II)
• Fund multidisciplinary research on the implications of AI for society
• Make data non-exclusively available to private actors, as it wants data
from private actors.
• Maximize potential AND address challenges as they present
themselves. This involves a good deal of political risk and therefore
political courage.
• Public trust on privacy must be earned, through:
• Legislation and communication
• Support and promote techniques that enable systems to use personal data
without assessing their identities: de-identification
Concluding remarks
1. Distinguishing between POLICY ON A.I. and POLICY WITH A.I. is key:
different roots, different solutions.
2. Shift in relevance from policy units to implementing agencies; and
from central govt to EU and metropolitan and local level
3. Policymaking will be about:
• Principles and purpose, not actions and measures
• Countering undesirable consequences of data-driven policies
4. Bring politics into the discussion:
• Democratic mandate and accountability of data-driven policy
• Appreciation that democratic politics restrain full potential of data-driven
policies