Towards Formalising AI Readiness of Standards

Standards and specifications (henceforth standards) greatly simplify our everyday lives and the economy in many areas. By establishing quality benchmarks and promoting interoperability, they form a key pillar for international trade and competition. As artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as one of the key technologies of the future, two fundamental questions arise regarding standards: (i) What new standards must be developed specifically for AI? (ii) What modifications to existing standards are necessary to fully leverage the potential of AI? The first question is being addressed actively through a variety of standardisation activities and analyses of the status quo. However, much of the second question remains unanswered. Although the problem is discussed in the literature, there is a lack of both a definition of AI readiness and a systematic analysis of the existing body of standards. This chapter, which originates in the project ‘AI Readiness of Standards’, aims to close this gap. Due to the complexity of the topic, we shall start by focusing on the German body of standards. Nonetheless, we believe our findings and proposals are extrapolatable to other, related contexts. This chapter represents the findings of the abovementioned project: presenting a conceptual definition of AI readiness and, a validated systematic approach for classifying whether an existing standard is AI ready. The procedure outlined here also serves as the foundation for an automated Natural Language Processing (NLP) analysis of the entire German body of standards regarding AI readiness.