Mr. John Sherwin:

The involvement of DPOs in AI is from a meaningful participation perspective rather than necessarily an expert stance on artificial intelligence itself, which, of course, is a very highly developed technical pursuit. Where we can contribute is on the lived experience of our members. Next week, we will launch the second position paper from the DPO Network, a blueprint for co-creation, in the audiovisual room here. This is a buzzword the committee will, hopefully, hear more about.

It is involved in the human rights for disabled people strategy that has been launched recently by the Department of Children, Disability and Equality. Co-creation is where disabled people are at the table discussing the development of strategies and services. They are involved in an appropriate way in terms of the implementation of strategies and the monitoring of them. They cannot be involved in everything throughout every process. We are looking for our Government partners to find appropriate ways where we are at the table and discussing with them, beyond what is traditionally called consultancy, where a Government Department or State body might ask for feedback from disabled people at the start of the development of a process and, the next thing you know, the service is being launched, typically with problems because we have not been involved in the design of the service. Typically, we are not involved in the assessment of the service. This is where problems lie. We propose there is time and budget saving by involving disabled people in the services that are for them from the start and throughout that. We will send copies of the blueprint for co-creation, which will be launched next week, to all the Oireachtas committees, Senators and TDs. We hope that will provide a good blueprint for how we should be involved in all processes, including the development of the Government's approach to AI. We have also submitted the Irish Deaf Society's paper, but what we are trying to do is outline our concerns. However, a key priority for us is to be at the table when there are rules being developed about procurement of AI, protection of people’s identities and how it will be assessed. It is clear in the AI bubble happening in the United States at the moment that there is a huge amount of hype and over specification of what AI is capable of. We can see in chatbots and other forms of assistance that disabled people engaging with Government services quickly hit a wall where the AI cannot help them any more. It does not have the nuance to understand how to help.