Topical review of artificial intelligence national policies: A mixed method analysis

Tahereh Saheb and Tayebeh Saheb

Technology in Society, 2023, vol. 74, issue C

Abstract: A number of countries have adopted national policies and directives to balance the advantages and disadvantages of innovative technologies. The purpose of this paper is to identify the most prominent topics addressed by national AI policies, as well as their relative importance across nations. This paper integrates the results of a topic modeling analysis of 30 national AI policies with a qualitative content analysis of the policies. Based on this analysis, fourteen main common themes have been identified among national AI policies, which predominantly relate to educational, technological, government, ethical/legal, and social good concerns. Following this, we conducted a co-occurrence analysis of topics across countries to determine the extent of topic prioritization in each country. In this investigation, several marginalized AI policy topics were also identified. In general, the challenges and concerns of the majority of policies pertain to education, technology, and the government. Governments refer to real-world projects and investments in AI technologies without developing shared digital governance platforms that promote responsible and sustainable AI among technology titans and mitigate the negative effects of surveillance capitalism. Although governments acknowledge the ethical and legal aspects of AI development and frequently cite the GDPR, they limit their discussion to the data level, particularly data sharing, and marginalize ethical algorithms and other phases of data and AI management and design. In addition, government policies marginalize AI startups and the API economy, even though they play a crucial role in fostering the AI ecosystem. The paper contributes to the existing literature on AI policy and will serve as a guide for AI policymakers to help them better understand the topical similarities across countries and the neglected or marginalized challenges that require further attention.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; National policy; Topic modeling; Qualitative content analysis; Ethic; Responsible; Open data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X23001215
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:74:y:2023:i:c:s0160791x23001215

DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102316

Access Statistics for this article

Technology in Society is currently edited by Charla Griffy-Brown

More articles in Technology in Society from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().