The Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA) has issued a charter to introduce relevant stakeholders within its business to artificial intelligence (AI) principles and ethics. The charter is made up of four guiding principles to enable the ethical use of AI in ADAFSA responsibly and without discrimination.

ADAFSA is one of the Abu Dhabi’s first government entities to issue an ethical charter on the use of artificial intelligence. This comes in line with ADAFSA’s commitment to the Abu Dhabi Government’s plan and the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence, which aims to leverage AI technology in all activities to improve services and achieve customer satisfaction.

The charter’s first principal focuses on impartiality and respect for current regulations and laws while designing, developing and applying AI systems and solutions in ADAFSA’s activities. The second principle guarantees transparency and flexibility for users or beneficiaries of AI systems, to make data processing methods accessible and understandable.

Meanwhile, the third principle ensures objectivity and fairness to in the development and design of AI systems. Moreover, the fourth principle focuses on ensuring the use of secure, accurate and reliable data, to enable AI applications’ contribution to agricultural sustainability, food security, biosecurity and food safety.

At ADAFSA, the Statistics and Analysis Division is tasked with managing, developing and applying AI systems to the Authority’s activities, due to its importance in advancing businesses and improving services offered to the public. The division further succeeded in developing a smart algorithm to eradicate Paste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) and vaccinating animals regularly, thus improving its immune system.

In this regard, Aisha Al Nayli Al Shamsi, Statistics and Analysis Division Director and Chief Data Officer at ADAFSA, said: “The moral and ethical aspect of AI applications is gaining increased importance worldwide. ADAFSA, therefore, has taken the initiative of issuing the charter to set out ethics for AI systems’ developers, users and beneficiaries.”Al Shamsi clarified that AI systems should be objective, transparent, flexible, fair, aligned with regulations, accountable, secure and reliable, as these are the principles that ADAFSA’s charter is based on.

“The commitment to these principles will contribute to digitalizing the agricultural and food sector, as well as embracing AI systems in developing supply chains or addressing challenges facing this strategic sector,” Al Shamsi noted.

She added that ADAFSA is launching several AI-based projects, such as analyzing big data, applying the IoT, and developing algorithm to improve methods of combating animal diseases.

Al Shamsi highlighted the outstanding results of ADAFSA’s smart algorithm to eradicate PPR, including improving animal immunity, reducing mortality of animals with PPR, raising veterinarians productivity, and increasing numbers of vaccinated livestock.