At the stakeholders' summit on artificial intelligence (AI) organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on Monday 18 June 2018, the European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel, announced that coordination would begin with member states to complete the approach begun by the Commission.
The Commissioner announced ahead of the meeting that, “It is time to pool our efforts and invest”. The meeting is expected to take place in the afternoon with the member states. She would like to develop an action plan approved by all the different parties “by the end of the year".
This collaboration follows the joint declaration made by the 24 member states for developing AI (see EUROPE 11998).
In addition to defining the common priorities and launching the co-ordinated projects, the Commission is hoping to obtain investment from the member states for relaunching the digital race in Europe.
The Commission proposed earmarking €1.5 billion for the 2018-20 period (see EUROPE 12009), in face of competition from the US and China, which has invested €18 billion over the same period.
Although the Commissioner considers that Europe would be able to compete in terms of investment in certain “strategic sectors”, emphasis should, above all, be placed on “the European approach based on fundamental rights”, which is close to the point of view expressed by the EESC (see EUROPE 12036).
A “zoo” of initiatives
Ms Gabriel confirmed the setting up of the European Alliance for Artificial Intelligence (see EUROPE 12042) and announced that a group of 52 experts appointed by the Commission (see EUROPE 12042) would meet up the following week to sketch out the legal framework for AI.
As part of the objective of disseminating “AI knowledge” and promoting expertise that will help businesses and the public authorities adapt to the new tools, it also announced the creation of two other bodies: the Artificial Intelligence “on demand” Platform, which will be operational by January 2019 and the European Coalition for Digital Jobs and Skills.
This juxtaposition of structures was not appreciated by Mady Delvaux (S&D, Luxembourg), the rapporteur on AI in Parliament, who mentioned the risk of a “zoo of initiatives” developing and the subsequent cacophony this would produce.
She called for a European AI agency to be set up that would centralise these initiatives and pointed out that Parliament had spoken in this connection last year. (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal, trainee)