Question 4 – What governance structure for AI projects do you have or plan?

[Stéphane Gagnon]

Question 4 – What governance structure for AI projects do you have or plan?

Please tell us in one paragraph the governance structure of projects according to your experience, and/or at least according to your plans, for the implementation and use of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the operations of parliaments.

Topic

[Dritan]

1. No dedicated Governance structure for AI. Decisions follow the current Governance Structure of the Parliament.

[Aleksandra]

Our parliament already uses the possibilities offered by AI. For instance, when it comes to cyber security, we have developed a software ‘Aspen’ enabling redirection of all cyber attacks to a virtual location, in real time, so that the attackers are not aware that they are actually attacking the systems that do not affect the work of the National Assembly. Thank to AI, we have protected the entire IT structure of the parliament. Moreover, we have introduced a system that monitors the entire parliament’s network topology, in real time. We have also virtualised the entire IT structure so that the operation of complex analogue IT systems could become fully digitalised, thus reducing the likelihood of hardware breakdowns on the equipment. Furthermore, through the ‘Disaster Recovery’ project, all National Assembly data have been transferred to the national data centre. We are currently developing a conceptual design for purchasing and implementing a platform for optimising business processes based on ‘RPA’ model. It is a technology that uses software robots and artificial intelligence to automate certain tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming, thus waste resources of employees. We are also going to purchase other modern technologies based on AI so that our IT system could be constantly improved, along with the training of parliamentary staff in the field of cutting-edge technologies.

[maria]

There is no dedicated Governance Structure for AI.

[Dimitris]

No special structure. Only some research silos, ad hoc efforts from a small team in the area of parliamentary research.

[Linas]

The governance structure is currently being drawn up by the Strategy and Innovation Unit with the help of other departments and units.
As for the internal structures governing the use of (generative) AI, the Research Unit is the only entity in the Office of the Seimas that provides any directions on this technology. In December 2023, our Research Unit approved new internal quality assurance guidelines, which have a paragraph about the use of AI for our work. The paragraph, when translated from Lithuanian, sounds like this:
“The Unit may use generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to gather relevant information necessary for the preparation of high-quality analytical work, and the author(s) shall keep the Head of Unit informed thereof. If answering the inquiry and the resulting written research document involves the use of AI technologies, this shall be indicated in the document’s footnotes and references to sources. The purpose of the use of AI tools shall be explained, together with a brief description of the information gathering and content generation process. The department’s work shall ensure the ethical use of the output generated by the AI tools.”

[Author]

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