The European Commission's communication on artificial intelligence (AI) dominated the exchange of views on Wednesday 16 May between representative from the Commission, Roberto Viola, and MEPs on the industry committee (ITRE).
The European official confirmed that the Commission’s “single digital market” department was not planning on any legislative initiatives on artificial intelligence during the Juncker Commission mandate, which comes to an end in autumn 2019.
The exchange of views focused on the initiatives before and after 2020. In his introductory speech, Mr Viola presented the package on data and the one presented at the end of April on platforms (see EUROPE 12009, 12010), as well as post-2020 budget proposals (see EUROPE 12013). He emphasised that digital policy was part of the multiannual financial framework and the future Digital Europe, Horizon Europe (see EUROPE 12018), Creative Europe the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programmes.
The Digital Europe programme will be based on the following axes: (1) big data and supercomputers; (2) artificial intelligence; (3) cyber security; (4) the continuation of the CEF in digital activities; and (5) advanced skills. He also stated that these specific proposals would be presented at the beginning of June.
The Commission Director-General were specifically asked about the European artificial intelligence strategy. He clarified certain concepts, such as the “regulatory sandboxes” that are supposed to facilitate the work of the digital innovation centres. He explained that, “this will help a local regulator to bypass temporary legal obligations in order to facilitate innovation".
On the next stages of the strategy, Mr Viola indicated that the Commission was not preparing a legislative follow-up initiative under the current mandate. As pointed out by Angelika Niebler (EPP, Germany), he did not provide any positions on the question and that “the communication contains a lot of evidence”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)