Welcome to the future of AI!

I am happy to announce the forthcoming EU High Level Conference on AI - From Ambition to Action, that will take place on 14-15 September 2021 in Slovenia and virtually all over the world!

Jointly co-organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the European Council and the European Commission, the event follows the previous editions of the European AI Alliance Assembly.and  is the first official event to discuss in a comprehensive way the “AI Package” proposed by the Commission on 21st April. We will discuss how to move towards its implementation in Europe, and we want to contribute to the debate on the establishment a shared framework for trustworthy AI at the global level.

 

Governing successfully AI cannot be done in isolation, but requires an international approach providing a common direction to navigate together the huge opportunities that emerging technologies are offering us, while at the same time helping to address the challenges and risks these same tools are posing to our societies today, and more so for the future generations.

This means anticipating possible negative consequences and stimulating the enabling conditions for human-centric AI to flourish, promoting economic growth and strengthening social cohesion, being beneficial for all citizens, while protecting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in society. For this reason, it is crucial that policy-makers at European and international level, and leaders from academia, industry and the civil society meet to deepen the understanding of different perspectives and the implications of specific proposals towards achieving a possible convergence and common mechanisms to assess, and when needed, regulate the use of AI systems and their impacts.

Since 2018 and the launch of the European AI Strategy, we regularly meet with EU member states to coordinate policy and boost financial support in AI uptake, development, research and innovation. The updated coordinated plan on AI, translates our common ambition to create EU global leadership in trustworthy AI, into concrete action. On the other hand, the European AI Alliance Assembly has  created a permanent platform to consolidate the discussion and reinforce cooperation among all stakeholders from government, industry, academia and civil society, across Europe and beyond.

We aim to bring this platform of discussion at a global level engaging in structured dialogues with likeminded countries and multilateral organisations. Together with the Slovenian Presidency, in the High Level Conference on AI, we will focus on key aspects that are discussed lively by the research and practice communities worldwide, and we are genuinely interested to listen not only to specialists, but the overall public, about the dreams - but also the fears - that the digital transformation is evoking to us all, and especially the youngsters, that are seeing the power of AI literally changing their world.

To this end we have asked a group of students to tell us how they see the future of AI, and we will discuss about standardization, governance and liability of AI. We will then look at the financing of AI innovation, and will pay a special attention on Green AI and AI Skills and Education.

We will also take a deep dive on exploring the enabling conditions for promoting AI, and how combining research and innovation to enhance the technological industry with the much needed safeguard of our environment and protecting fundamental human rights and democratic values.

This is the European perspective to AI, that we are eager to share globally!

Building effectively the ecosystems of excellence and trust that are the cornerstone of the proposal advanced by the EU, is a collective effort and I am thus pleased to invite you not only to attend the event, but participate actively, making contributions through the AI Alliance Community, asking questions during the conference and engage with us to help shaping the human-centric approach to AI.

This is in only the first of a series of events we are planning for reaching out our next destination: the future of AI!