AI ‘won’t live up to the hype’, warns thinktank

Governments must gain the trust of their citizens when it comes to increasing the use of artificial intelligence (AI), warns a new report. The Centre for Public Impact (CPI) thinktank, which was founded by consultant Boston Consulting Group, said that public trust in AI is low. While AI has the potential in mobility to make public transport responsive to traveller needs in real time, for example, the influence of AI is viewed negatively by some. Launching an action plan for governments at the Tallinn Digi
October 16, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Governments must gain the trust of their citizens when it comes to increasing the use of artificial intelligence (AI), warns a new report.


The Centre for Public Impact (CPI) thinktank, which was founded by consultant 4055 Boston Consulting Group, said that public trust in AI is low. While AI has the potential in mobility to make public transport responsive to traveller needs in real time, for example, the influence of AI is viewed negatively by some.

Launching an action plan for governments at the Tallinn Digital Summit in Estonia, CPI said that many governments are not adequately prepared, and are not taking the right steps to engage and inform citizens of where and how AI is being used.

Such information is vital to give AI “trust and legitimacy”, CPI believes. Programme director Danny Buerkli says: “When it comes to AI in government we either hear hype or horror; but never the reality.”

Its paper ‘How to make AI work in government and for people’ suggests that governments:

  • Understand the real needs of your users - understand their actual problems, and build systems around them (and not around some pretend problem just to use AI)
  • Focus on specific and doable tasks
  • Build AI literacy in the organisation and the public
  • Keep maintaining and improving AI systems - and adapt them to changing circumstances
  • Design for and embrace extended scrutiny - be resolutely open towards the public, your employees and other governments and organisations about what you are doing


Boston Consulting Group said that a survey of 14,000 internet users in 30 countries revealed that nearly a third (32%) of citizens are ‘strongly concerned’ that the moral and ethical issues of AI have not been resolved.

Classification & Data Collection

Related Content

  • August 15, 2019
    IBTTA Summit: satellite tolling is the future
    IBTTA members met in Florida to consider the technological changes that will impact their businesses – including satellite tolling. Colin Sowman reports from Orlando Over decades, the technology employed in toll collection has been honed to near perfection – automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are easily within a couple of per cent of infallibility even at highway speeds. However, technical innovations beyond the confines of the toll road cannot b
    Read More
  • April 5, 2017
    Autonomous vehicles will not prevent half of real-world crashes
    Alan Thomas of CAVT looks at the reality behind the safety claims fuelling the drive towards autonomous vehicles
    Read More
  • November 6, 2018
    We don’t understand ITS, say transport companies: new IRU report
    Half of transport companies say that ITS adoption is being held back by a “limited understanding of the range of emerging technologies available”, according to a new global survey. The sobering finding – which indicates that ITS providers and policy makers have more to do to explain some of the benefits – comes from the IRU’s ‘The future of road transport’ report. The other major barrier to adopting technology is cost, say 71% of respondents. The IRU says: “This suggests that pockets of the industry have
    Read More
  • January 26, 2018
    To charge or not to charge, that is the question
    Alan Dron looks at why congestion charging and other similar schemes are so controversial in North America. In August, Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State, described congestion charging for the city as “an idea whose time had come,” according to the Bloomberg wire service. In October, he announced a ‘Fix NYC’ advisory panel to study methods of easing congestion on the city’s streets. Although Cuomo did not specifically mention congestion charging when setting up the panel, he said it would study
    Read More

Highlighted Content