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Evaluating international AI skills policy: a systematic review of AI skills policy in seven countries

Evaluating international AI skills policy: a systematic review of AI skills policy in seven countries
Evaluating international AI skills policy: a systematic review of AI skills policy in seven countries

As artificial intelligence (AI) is having an increasingly disruptive impact across industries, companies continue to report having difficulty when recruiting for AI roles, while new graduates find it difficult to find employment, indicating a skills gap or skills misalignment. International approaches to AI skills programmes can offer a guide to future policy development of a skilled workforce, best placed to harness the economic opportunities that AI may support. The authors performed a systematic literature review on AI skills in government policies and documents from seven countries: Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingom and the United States. We found a divide between countries which emphasised a broader, nationwide approach to upskill and educate all citizens at different levels, namely the United States and Singapore and those countries which emphasised a narrower focus on educating a smaller group of experts with advanced AI knowledge and skills, namely China, Sweden and Canada. We found that the former, broader approaches tended to correlate with higher AI readiness and index scores than the narrower, expert-driven approach. Our findings indicate that, to match world-leading AI readiness, future AI skills policy should follow these broad, nationwide approaches to upskill and educate all citizens at different levels of AI expertise.

1758-5880
Rigley, Eryn
713d79b1-a53a-44c4-a52a-1b5b46827f68
Bentley, Caitlin
af981bf4-62ad-4501-adb8-10e44dc2a669
Krook, Joshua
e7261d11-4357-4e51-baca-115e64ae54dd
Ramchurn, Gopal
1d62ae2a-a498-444e-912d-a6082d3aaea3
Rigley, Eryn
713d79b1-a53a-44c4-a52a-1b5b46827f68
Bentley, Caitlin
af981bf4-62ad-4501-adb8-10e44dc2a669
Krook, Joshua
e7261d11-4357-4e51-baca-115e64ae54dd
Ramchurn, Gopal
1d62ae2a-a498-444e-912d-a6082d3aaea3

Rigley, Eryn, Bentley, Caitlin, Krook, Joshua and Ramchurn, Gopal (2023) Evaluating international AI skills policy: a systematic review of AI skills policy in seven countries. Global Policy. (doi:10.1111/1758-5899.13299).

Record type: Article

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) is having an increasingly disruptive impact across industries, companies continue to report having difficulty when recruiting for AI roles, while new graduates find it difficult to find employment, indicating a skills gap or skills misalignment. International approaches to AI skills programmes can offer a guide to future policy development of a skilled workforce, best placed to harness the economic opportunities that AI may support. The authors performed a systematic literature review on AI skills in government policies and documents from seven countries: Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingom and the United States. We found a divide between countries which emphasised a broader, nationwide approach to upskill and educate all citizens at different levels, namely the United States and Singapore and those countries which emphasised a narrower focus on educating a smaller group of experts with advanced AI knowledge and skills, namely China, Sweden and Canada. We found that the former, broader approaches tended to correlate with higher AI readiness and index scores than the narrower, expert-driven approach. Our findings indicate that, to match world-leading AI readiness, future AI skills policy should follow these broad, nationwide approaches to upskill and educate all citizens at different levels of AI expertise.

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Accepted/In Press date: 9 October 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 3 December 2023
Additional Information: Funding Information: This research was supported via UKRI by the DCMS Science and Analysis R&D Programme. It was developed and produced according to UKRI's initial hypotheses and output requests. Any primary research, subsequent findings or recommendations do not represent Government views or policy and are produced according to academic ethics, quality assurance and independence.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 485727
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/485727
ISSN: 1758-5880
PURE UUID: 8b26e45d-68a9-4a2b-98cd-74a02ffe24b1
ORCID for Gopal Ramchurn: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9686-4302

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Date deposited: 15 Dec 2023 17:42
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:01

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Contributors

Author: Eryn Rigley
Author: Caitlin Bentley
Author: Joshua Krook
Author: Gopal Ramchurn ORCID iD

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