The ghost of AI governance past, present and future: AI governance in the European Union

Abstract

The received work provides a simplified overview of the past, present and future of AI governance in the European Union. It gives the reader a solid background understanding of how the EU reached the current status as global leader in the regulation of AI, notably, under the framework of human-centric and trustworthy AI. The chapter suggests that the EU occupied this position by spearheading ‘trustworthy AI’ early on and using it as guiding principle for accompanying policy measures. Furthermore, it is argued that current AI governance mechanisms can be seen as coherent and strategically aligned instruments in a chain of policies addressing ethical, legal and societal concerns regarding AI, initiated many years ago. The chapter goes on to outline the EU’s AI governance from its past (e.g. the European Parliament’s ‘Civil Law Rules on Robotics’ and the EGE’s Statement on ‘Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems’) to the present (e.g. the ‘Digital Day Declaration on Cooperation on AI’, the European Commission’s AI strategy, the ‘White Paper on AI’, the ‘Coordinated Plan on AI: 2021 review’, the proposed ‘Regulation on a European approach for Artificial Intelligence (AI Act)’ and adjacent initiatives), and provides an outlook on its future (e.g. AI megaprojects, EU AI Agencies and standardisation). – AI-generated abstract.