First analysis of the EU Whitepaper on AI – ALLAI

The White Paper is the European Commission’s first concrete attempt at discussing AI policy beyond the high-level statements of previous Communications. In this sense, the Commission takes up a rule setting role (rather than a referee role). In our opinion, this is a good first step. If we were to draw the analogy with a game, independently of who is playing the game, without rules no one wins. Moreover, the potential impact of AI, both positive and negative, is too large to be left outside of democratic oversight. While the ideas of the Commission need further elaboration and depth, the true the leap forward would be not only to focus on “Trustworthy AI made in Europe” as an alternative to AI made by the existing tech giants, but to promote trustworthy AI as a competitive advantage and incentivize and invest in the institutions, research and frameworks that can set this new AI playing field.