Debate: Artificial intelligence in a digital age
Date: TUESDAY, 3 MAY 2022
Speaker: Margrethe Vestager
Language: EN

Artificial intelligence can be a precious tool, solving some of the biggest challenges in our time, or at least helping us solve some of the biggest challenges. Because artificial intelligence, as any other technology, is a tool for humans and no matter the technology, our societies will be no better or no worse than the choices we make as humans.  But we have choices to make because some citizens are still left out when it comes to health, and we are all still not quite there when it comes to fighting climate change.  We see many synergies in the AIDA report and the Commission approach to artificial intelligence. Our approach to AI also recognises the two sides of the AI mettle that we just heard of, providing enormous opportunities in terms of economic growth, to our well-being.  But using AI for certain applications, well, it also carries risks, risk of something fundamental that are the building blocks of our society and our democracy. And there you have use cases that should be tackled with legislation.  We want artificial intelligence to flourish, to reap the benefits but, of course, also to make sure that we address any possible concern to ensure what is trustworthy technology, what is technology used in a way that puts the human at the centre and that respects Europe’s social market model. We want to make Europe a global leader in adapting these latest technologies and in developing these technologies, seizing the benefits, promoting the development of this technology. Our ambition is to increase public and private investment to a total of EUR 20 billion per year over the course of this coming decade.  Well, currently we stand at about EUR 14 billion per year of combined public and private investment in artificial intelligence throughout Europe. For the Commission side, we’re investing 50 billion in Horizon Europe to create a network of AI excellence centres, to bring together excellence, because we know that talent attracts talent, and if we want the best to come here, we need to invest.  And we are also investing in industrial research. We just set up a public—private partnership on artificial intelligence to deal with data and robotics, strengthening the use of artificial intelligence when it comes to our industrial needs, and of course, also how we can make our societies more sustainable.  And in the context of the AI Act, we foresee a number of measures that ensure that startups and SMEs are encouraged and not discouraged from developing their technologies within the European Union. Foremost is the creation of regulatory sandboxes, which will ensure an environment in which business and regulators can cooperate in ensuring the development of AI is in compliance.  But I think the most important thing here is that, as legislators, we are not suggesting you to regulate technology. We are suggesting you to regulate the use of technology in order for that to be future-proof, in order not for making the next developer, the next researcher, the legislator look as if we were in the past. But to regulate in the use cases, and I think that is how to create trust, that elected representatives as you are thinking about something that is indeed future-proof, that preserves the fundamentals while at the same time enabling this technology to serve us at our best when we want to fight climate change, increase cohesion and make sure that all the other use cases they can be as prosperous as possible.  I think together we can achieve this, and Parliament has already put forward suggestions for civil liability regimes for AI and we will follow up on this with legislative proposals later this year, to create the necessary synergies between the AI Act and AI liability rules to develop an overall regulatory framework for AI, because that is part of creating trust – that, if damaged, you can get compensation. Together, I think we can achieve this. I have been enjoying and I’ve been learning from the cooperation with the European Parliament in these many months, and I look forward for our continued cooperation.