Meehan worked alongside professionals from across the globe to recommend policies that protect consumer privacy.
As a part of Howso’s efforts to increase AI transparency worldwide, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer Michael Meehan drafted large parts of a comprehensive report providing financial services leaders with AI business and policy recommendations. Mike was appointed by the UK Government to its Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Synthetic Data Expert Group, where he worked alongside leaders from Barclays, Mastercard, Cambridge University, Carnegie Mellon University, Experian, the Royal Society, the Alan Turing Institute, and more. Together, they developed recommended policies to protect consumer privacy during AI implementations.
The group’s work is timely as industry leaders work to ensure their AI-driven systems are safe and transparent. Any AI platform that makes decisions on credit, loans, and other financial products impacting consumers cannot include bias, hallucinations, or data leakage. The report specifically presents case studies on how financial services companies have implemented synthetic data to promote innovation, while making their AI rollouts less biased and more inclusive to all consumers.
“The speed at which AI is advancing requires all stakeholders – AI providers, consumers, and governing bodies – to communicate effectively about shared standards across the financial services industry. That way, we can usher in this new era of technology responsibly,” said Dr. Meehan. “The UK FCA is impressive in its forward-looking approach, and the synthetic data report is a perfect example of government, industry, academics, and think tank luminaries coming together to help make responsible AI a reality.”
This isn’t the first time that Howso leaders have helped guide governing bodies and industry leaders in how they think about AI. This past fall, Howso Co-Founder and Chairman Mike Capps participated in US Senator Chuck Schumer’s AI Insight Forum to advocate for explainable AI. Last summer, Dr. Mike Meehan spoke to Tech GC, a General Counsel community for leading venture capital funds and high-growth technology companies, about a drafted version of the EU AI Act and its potential impact.
The EU AI Act officially passed on March 13th, 2024. The bill deemed financial services as an industry at “high-risk” for bias, meaning that “citizens have a right to submit complaints about AI systems and receive explanations about decisions that affect their rights,” according to the European Parliament. While the EU AI Act is the first major AI bill, experts anticipate even more legislative activity in governments across the globe in the coming years that will mandate AI explainability.
Howso has been working to make explainable AI the global standard since the company’s inception in 2017. Howso’s core platform, Howso Engine, enables accurate and performant inference attribution, with lineage all the way back to the source data. This also applies to Howso Synthesizer, a synthetic data tool built on Howso Engine. If your organization is interested in explainable AI, drop us a note here.