AI Readiness Index 2020 published

Oxford Insights and the International Research Development Centre have published the 2020 edition of the Government Artificial Intelligence (AI) Readiness Index. The index measures governments’ readiness to implement AI in the delivery of public services to their citizens; it looks at the capabilities and enabling factors required for a government to be ready for AI implementation but it does not measure the implementation itself. The top five places in the index are occupied by the USA, the UK, Finland, Germany, and Sweden, reflecting the fact that North America and Western Europe are the highest scoring regions overall in terms of AI readiness. China occupies only the 19th position, and the report’s authors note that this is a reflection of the difference between government AI readiness and government AI implementation (China is ‘making better use of its capabilities than many other countries who may score more highly for readiness but have not yet turned that readiness into concrete implementation’). The index also shows once again that the global South is lagging behind the global North in government AI Readiness: Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South and Central Asia are the lowest scoring region on average. The report also includes a Responsible Use Sub-index, which compares 34 countries on the issue of responsible use of AI. At the top of this cub-index are Estonia, Norway, Luxembourg, Finland, and Sweden; the USA and the UK scored lower, while India, Russia, and China are near the bottom of the sub-index.