EU Members Adopt Plan To Make Europe A Leader In Artificial Intelligence

The European Council of member states has adopted an all-encompassing plan to make Europe a global leader in artificial intelligence and integrate AI into all aspects of regional life. The plan, which comes as Europe has been identified as lagging in AI research and investment behind the United States and China, includes strong calls to ramp up investment while carefully considering AI’s impact on labour and ethics.

The European Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence, adopted by the Council on 18 February, is available here.

The 9-page plan stresses the importance of building on and pulling together work being done across Europe, in various groups, research facilities, governments, educational institutions and so forth, and including Switzerland and Norway with the EU members. It touches all levels of business and society, from the largest to the smallest, with the goal of infusing AI to the foundations with full inclusion and understanding.

It calls for governments to consider legislation as needed to allow for the rapid development of AI while protecting fundamental rights. It also calls for ramping up of expertise in all areas related to AI, from information and communications technology professionals to scientists, engineers, mathematicians, lawyers and psychologists.

The plan “emphasises the urgency of promoting a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts of digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, incorporating digital skills with a special focus on Artificial Intelligence at all levels of education and, increasing the availability of high-quality ICT programmes, with a focus on automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence as well as software reliability and security, in tertiary education,” it says.

A key aspect also is to develop secure and high quality data, including the “creation of trusted common European data spaces.” It also hails European Commission efforts to tie AI in with the European space programme.

Member states are encouraged to “put in place, by mid-2019, national Artificial Intelligence strategies or programmes, or to include Artificial Intelligence dimensions in other relevant strategies and programmes, by outlining envisaged investments and implementation measures.” The plan further “strongly encourages all economic actors to step up investments in Artificial Intelligence.”

The plan highlights the importance of results of a forthcoming report by a high-level expert group on the impact of the digital transformation on EU labour markets, expected this spring.

The wide-ranging and cross-cutting vision of the plan can be seen in the second item in the document, which states that the Council:

“UNDERLINES the crucial importance of fostering the development and use of Artificial Intelligence in Europe by increasing investment in that area, reinforcing excellence in Artificial Intelligence technologies and applications, and strengthening research and innovation collaboration between industry and academia on Artificial Intelligence, in order to transfer quickly and efficiently new results and insights from research on Artificial Intelligence to industry and finally to markets, the public sector and consumers; RECOMMENDS the development of high-end applications in all economic sectors to foster economic growth and contribute to solving the world’s biggest challenges from curing diseases to energy transition, fighting climate change and anticipating natural disasters, to making transport safer, fighting crime, and improving cyber security; ENCOURAGES the promotion and development of key enabling technologies and Artificial Intelligence applications, building on examples of more advanced areas such as healthcare, agriculture or connected and autonomous mobility;”

 

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