Tech Disputes Network (TDN) – Need to Know Basis

Explaining AI in a Personal Data Processing Context - Terence Bergin QC and Quentin Tannock

We are very pleased to welcome Terence Bergin QC and Quentin Tannock, both of 4 Pump Court, to present the fourth episode of the Tech Dispute Network’s ‘Need to Know Basis’ podcast series on the issue of explaining AI, with specific reference to processing personal data in light of recent guidance published by the Information Commissioner's Office on this issue. You can find the podcast here: https://disputes.tech/podcasts/

This series of podcasts aims to provide the key points on the most important cases and developments with a tech angle via short, digestible podcasts, presented by the leading experts in the field. You can find the podcasts at disputes.tech, as well as on Spotify and iTunes. 

AI systems, however otherworldly their brilliance may appear, are of course all built by developers with human fallibilities that are liable to be reflected in the systems they design and build. However, many forms of AI, in particular the in influential fields of machine learning and its sub-field of deep learning, are often notoriously resistant to permitting clear explanations of how the AI system came to a particular result. As autonomous decision-making becomes more and more mainstream, the potential danger is that an ever-increasing amount of the decisions in our day to day lives are liable to be taken by computer systems whose decision-making processes may be very hard or even impossible to interrogate in conventional ways.

Terence Bergin QC is one of the country’s pre-eminent tech disputes practitioners and has appeared in many of the most important cases relating to the supply of computer systems over the past 20 years, was twice awarded Chambers & Partners IT Junior of the Year before taking silk, and, together with Quentin, he has recently published on the subject of explaining AI. Quentin Tannock's past lives have included turns as a solicitor, a venture capital executive, and teaching at Cambridge University. He has a broad commercial practice, and particular expertise in tech and contentious IP, in which areas he may be among the most technologically-knowledgeable juniors at the bar.

We very much hope you enjoy this week’s podcast and thank you for your continued support of the TDN: if you’d like to join the Network and ensure you receive details of our events and future podcasts, please click here.  You can also follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep up with the latest news on tech-related disputes.