Professor Deirdre Ahern:

Senator Ruane also asked me a great question, which is a complex one too, about a person being discriminated against by an AI system. The answer is complicated. It depends on the context. At the moment, there are a lot of different routes it could go. A discrimination case could go to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. If goods and services were involved, it could go the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. It could be that a person's data was used in a way a person did not like, which may then be raised with the Data Protection Commission. Were a person to be discriminated against in the context of financial services, that could then go to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman.

Will it get easier with the AI Act? A lot remains to be seen because it is a regulation coming from the EU. What normally happens when it comes to enforcement is that a lot of detail is left to each member state because the legal systems are so different. We are waiting for the publication and implementation of legislation, that I believe is being worked on, which will get into the detail and allow the average human who feels he or she has been discriminated against to bring a complaint. I do not know as yet how that will work. There are supposed to be dissuasive sanctions. We do not yet know what that will look like. Ireland still has time to put that in place. Even though it is a maximum harmonisation regulation, each member state has to work out the detail. We hope it will be a clear pathway because I know how complex this is. It will be so important that things such as the websites of citizen's advice centres, etc., will make it really clear for people as to what they can do if they feel that this has happened to them.