Ms Hilary O'Meara:

I will start by addressing the first question, which relates to what I said about opportunity and risk. I was trying to emphasise that there is a great deal of fear about these new technologies. Fear can stop you from acting. The Government needs to step up alongside business and other parts of the research-and-development ecosystem to support us to lead in generative AI. If you look at what we have done in technology over the past decade, you can see that we have been at the forefront. We need to sustain that competitive advantage. I have examples of what I would love to see as we go forward. We talk about leading from the front, leadership and taking the lead. If the Government voice was demonstrating that this is something important, it would be significant. What do I mean by that? We talk about the EU AI Act. If we were quick to stand that up and demonstrate that we are policing compliance in the context of regulation and by resourcing the entity that is going to look after our compliance, it would show that we are serious from the point of view of regulation and responsibility.

It is equally about supporting education, and making sure the next generation is literate with and has the skills necessary for the jobs of the future. That will be incredibly important. There are likewise things like reskilling the current workforce. This will be massively disruptive. I am not saying it will be in the next six months, but it is certainly not far away. The pace is much different to previous technologies. Getting on the front foot in the context of looking at how we reskill the population is something businesses will do within their own organisations, but a wider programme like amplifying Skillnet will be incredibly helpful in this area. That is particularly the case for smaller organisations and SMEs for example. We also need to make sure we are at the forefront of policy and regulation. There is much negativity around generative AI, and I understand why. It is good we are having that debate and we understand the risks. Equally, there is a good deal of social value that Irish citizens could benefit from if we get it right. It is about making sure we are not afraid, and that we step up and understand this. I would go so far as to say that there needs to be a Department or agency that is adequately resourced with the right people who obsess about these technologies every day and who understand them. I cannot speak for the others although I am sure it is the same, but Accenture is having to equip itself every day, week and month with these technologies that are moving so fast. Government needs to be in the same position, where it understands them and can set the policy and direction. It can support businesses and employees through what will be a massively disruptive time. That is what I meant about balancing the opportunity and the risk and acting in that regard.

I will speak briefly about responsible AI. Others may then wish to come in on this. Again, it builds on the idea that we need to do this responsibly. I go back to the fact that I am encouraged that all of these challenges with generative AI are being surfaced. We are not going into this blind. We are aware of these risks. Not all of them can be solved overnight. It will take time. Some solutions are starting to emerge. I mentioned that 2% of organisations have principles. That is good. Accenture has seven principles. I am sure PwC has its principles. That is good, but principles do not help anybody if they sit on a shelf. You have to implement them to demonstrate you are taking this seriously. You need to live them day to day. We mean that in organisations you need to be using generative AI so that when designing using generative AI you need to be doing so in a responsible way. You are then making sure that what is built is built in accordance with that responsible design. You are testing in a way that ensures it is responsible. Once you put it in the hands of users, you then have to keep monitoring to make sure it is safe and responsible. You have to govern and put the tools in place to do that. If we do that, it does help.

I will give one example in Accenture. Every client engagement we have, no matter how small or big, has to go through a mandatory risk assessment before we can ever go to do the work with a client. The chair of our responsible AI governance is our global CEO. We are taking this all the way to the top of the organisation. We report to our board globally every quarter on what we are doing with generative AI and demonstrate that we are doing so in a responsible way. It is incredibly important that every organisation is adopting that approach, and that Government is talking about it and making sure that is the approach we are taking. It is about striking a balance between the opportunity and social value we can get from the technology and marrying this to doing it in a responsible way.