Guidelines for Designing Trustworthy AI Services in the Public Sector.

Sammanfattning: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a popular topic in different areas of the current world. Thus, it is natural that its use is considered in the public sector. AI brings many opportunities for public institutions and citizens, like more attractive, accessible and flexible services. However, existing stories also show that the unethical or opaque use of AI can reduce significantly citizens’ trust in responsible public institutions. As it is important to maintain such trust, trustworthy AI services are gaining more and more interest. This work aims to answer the question of what needs to be taken into consideration while designing trustworthy public sector AI services. The study was done in Finland. The design process was used as a study method and it consisted of qualitative interviews, design workshop and validation with user testing. Altogether more than 30 Finnish residents participated in the study. Currently, there are more positive than negative voices about the usage of AI in the public sector, however, the number of the latter is significant. The most negative voices were coming from older people of low education and from younger AI specialists. Moreover, strong trust exists in the public sector. Nevertheless, citizens are voicing multiple concerns, such as security or privacy. It is important to keep the public sector services transparent, in order to keep trust in the public sector and build trust in AI. Citizens need to know when AI is used, how and for what purpose, as well as, what data is used and why they receive specific results. Citizens’ needs and concerns, as well as ethical requirements, ought to be addressed in the design and development of trustworthy public sector AI services. Those are, for example, mitigating discrimination risks, providing citizens with control over their data and having a person involved in AI processes. Designers and developers of trustworthy public sector AI services should aim to understand citizens and ensure them about their needs and concerns being met, through the transparent service and the positive experience of using the service.