The European Union and the United States published a joint statement on Friday affirming their desire to increase cooperation on artificial intelligence – including on AI security and governance – and, more broadly, expressing their intention to collaborate in a number of other technological areas. issues such as developing standards for digital identities and pressuring platforms to defend human rights.
As we announced on Wednesday, this is the result of the sixth (and perhaps final) meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC), a body that has been meeting since 2021 to attempt to rebuild transatlantic relations damaged by the Trump presidency. .
Given the possibility of Donald Trump being re-elected to the White House, with the US presidential elections taking place later this year, it is unclear to what extent cooperation between the EU and US in the field AI or any other strategic technology area. In fact occur in the years to come.
But in the current political context across the Atlantic, the desire to promote closer alignment on a range of technological issues has strengthened. There is also a mutual desire to make this message heard – hence today’s joint statement – which is perhaps also a broader call to voters on both sides to opt for a collaborative agenda , rather than for a destructive opposing agenda, at election time.
A dialogue on AI
In a section of the joint statement focused on AI, filed under the title “Advancing Transatlantic Leadership in Critical and Emerging Technologies,” the two write that they “reaffirm our commitment to an approach to risk-based artificial intelligence…and to advance security. AI technologies, secure and trustworthy.
“We encourage advanced AI developers in the United States and Europe to promote the application of the Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct for Organizations Developing Advanced AI Systems, which complements our governance and monitoring systems. respective regulations”, also indicates the press release, referring to a set of risks. recommendations based on the G7 discussions on AI last year.
The main development from the sixth TTC meeting appears to be a commitment from the EU and US AI watchdogs, the European AI Office and the US AI Security Institute , to set up what is described as a “dialogue”. The aim is to foster deeper collaboration between AI institutions, with a particular focus on encouraging the sharing of scientific information between the respective AI research ecosystems.
Topics highlighted here include benchmarks, potential risks, and future technology trends.
“This cooperation will contribute to advancing the implementation of the common roadmap on assessment and measurement tools for trustworthy AI and risk management, which is essential to minimize divergences, if any, in our respective emerging systems of AI governance and regulation, and to cooperate on interoperable projects. and international standards,” both parties suggest.
The statement also flags an updated version of a list of key AI terms, with “common, mutually agreed definitions,” as another outcome of ongoing stakeholder discussions arising from the TTC.
Agreement on definitions will be a key piece of the puzzle to support work towards AI standardization.
A third element of what has been agreed by the EU and US on AI aims for collaboration to boost research aimed at applying machine learning technologies to beneficial use cases, such as improving healthcare outcomes, boosting agriculture and tackling climate change, with a particular focus on sustainable development. In a briefing with journalists earlier this week, a senior Commission official suggested that this element of the joint work would focus on advances in AI in developing countries and the Global South.
“We are advancing the promise of AI for sustainable development in our bilateral relationship through joint research cooperation under the Administrative Arrangement on Artificial Intelligence and Computing to Address Global Challenges for Good public,” said the joint statement. “Working groups composed jointly of U.S. science agencies and European Commission departments and agencies have made substantial progress in defining critical milestones for expected outcomes in the areas of extreme weather, energy, emergency and reconstruction. We are also making constructive progress in health and agriculture.
In addition, a summary document on collaboration around AI for the public good was published on Friday. According to the document, multidisciplinary teams from the EU and US spent more than 100 hours in scientific meetings over the past semester “to discuss how to advance AI applications in projects and areas of work in progress”.
“The collaboration is making positive progress in a number of areas relating to challenges such as energy optimization, emergency response, urban reconstruction and forecasting extreme weather and climate conditions,” it continues, adding : “In the coming months, scientific experts and ecosystems from the EU and the United States intend to continue strengthening their collaboration and presenting innovative research around the world. This will unleash the power of AI to tackle global challenges.
According to the joint statement, there is a desire to expand collaborative efforts in this area by adding more global partners.
“We will continue to explore opportunities with our partners in the UK, Canada and Germany under the Donor Partnership on AI for Development to accelerate and align our foreign assistance in Africa to help educators, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens to harness the promise of AI. », Note the EU and the United States.
On platforms, an area where the EU is implementing wide-ranging recently passed legislation – including laws like the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act – both sides are united in calling for major technologies to protect “information integrity”. seriously.
The joint declaration calls 2024 a “pivotal year for democratic resilience”, due to the number of elections held around the world. And includes an explicit warning about the threats posed by AI-generated information, saying both sides “share the concern that malicious use of AI applications, such as the creation of harmful ‘deepfakes,’ poses new risks, in particular by promoting propagation and targeting. manipulation and interference of foreign information.
It then addresses a number of areas of ongoing EU-US cooperation on platform governance and includes a joint call for platforms to do more to support researchers’ access to data – in particular for the study of societal risks (which the EU DSA makes a legal obligation for large platforms).
Regarding electronic identity, the statement refers to ongoing collaboration on standardization work, adding: “The next phase of this project will focus on identifying potential use cases for transatlantic interoperability and cooperation with a view to enabling the cross-border use of digital identities and wallets.
Other areas of cooperation covered by the declaration include clean energy, quantum and 6G.
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