From the regulatory strategy at the moment beneath dialogue to the geopolitical dangers of AI, Europe’s challenges vis-a-vis Synthetic Intelligence are many. The assume thank community PromethEUs introduced its paper on AI on Tuesday (14 November), specializing in the EU’s AI Act, generative AI, and AI and companies.
The community contains 4 Southern European assume tanks: the Institute for Competitiveness from Italy, the Elcano Royal Institute from Spain, the Basis for Financial and Industrial Analysis from Greece, and the Institute of Public Coverage from Portugal.
For the presentation of its newest examine, consultants and stakeholders gathered in Brussels to debate the potential highway forward for Europe’s future competitiveness on this area.
AI Act
The EU’s AI Act is a flagship legislative proposal and the world’s first try to manage Synthetic Intelligence on a risk-based strategy.
“The definition of AI, as unusual as it might sound, remains to be beneath dialogue within the trilogue”, mentioned Steffen Hoernig, professor at Nova College of Enterprise and Economics, including that you will need to “be capable to determine which kind of methods fall beneath the AI Act”.
Euractiv understands that EU policymakers have been ready for the Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD) to replace its definition of AI.
Hoernig mentioned that discussions are ongoing in regards to the file, similar to beneath which threat class biometric AI belongs, or the institution of an AI Board or an AI Workplace. Nationwide positions differ, particularly on the latter, Hoerning famous.
He mentioned a “huge subject” is the query of foundational fashions and the overall goal of AI, declaring that ChatGPT was launched after the proposal was drafted so it’s not coated within the textual content.
Final Friday, Euractiv reported that France and Germany, beneath strain from their main AI startups, had been pushing in opposition to obligations for basis fashions, resulting in robust political frictions with MEPs, who need to regulate these fashions.
Hoering believes that “nationwide pursuits in some international locations are taking precedence over the pursuits of the EU” in terms of the regulation and that the “query of how we must always outline hyperscale AI methods” stays.
Generative AI
Stefano da Empoli, president of the Institute for Competitiveness, argued that, whereas generative AI methods just like the chatbot ChatGPT will be the most seen to customers, the phrases additionally check with different instruments.
The examine focuses on Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal, that are on the backside of the rating by way of utilizing generative AI in comparison with Nordic EU international locations. Greater than a 3rd of the generative AI startups in Europe are situated within the UK.
On the identical time, da Empoli emphasised that investments on this disruptive know-how have been put “barely on the sidelines” as a result of they’re “extra within the arms of the member states”.
Raquel Jorge, a coverage analyst on the Elcano Royal Institute defined that “by way of safety, what now we have recognized is that generative AI will current safety dangers, however we’re not fairly positive that it’s going to create new threats”, including that “as a substitute, it seems to be like it can amplify the prevailing threats”.
“When it comes all the way down to the dual-use purposes of generative AI, there’s some doubt in regards to the army utilization, ” she mentioned.
Jorge additionally famous that whereas it might appear that NATO “retains away from the EU’s actuality”, in July, NATO’s Knowledge and Synthetic Intelligence Evaluation Board hosted a personal occasion associated to generative AI.
AI and companies
Aggelos Tsakanikas, an affiliate professor on the Nationwide Technical College of Athens, mentioned they aimed to measure “the influence of AI on companies for entrepreneurship” and assess “the insurance policies carried out within the 4 international locations of the PromethEUs community”.
The analysis confirmed, for instance, that there’s a scarcity of specialists in Spain, whereas in Greece, there are startup actions associated to AI.
Tsakanikas agreed with Hoernig that defining AI remains to be ongoing however added that it is usually a query of how companies use it.
“We have to have a really strict definition of what precisely we’re measuring after we are attempting to see the diffusion of AI within the enterprise sector”, he mentioned.
A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, alternatives, and threats) evaluation has been carried out for the paper, “discussing all the foremost points associated to AI”, similar to non-qualified staff, political resistance, and financial prices, Tsakanikas defined.
[Edited by Luca Bertuzzi/Zoran Radosavljevic]
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