The draft report says that the public debate should shift towards a focus on the enormous potential of AI, which offers humankind the unique chance to improve almost every area of our lives. AI could help combat climate change, pandemics and global hunger, and enhance quality of life through personalised medicine. However, it also exposes some challenges for democracy that need to be adressed.

statement

use of robotics and artificial intelligence (T)

TUDORACHE, Dragoş (Renew, RO)

Special committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age

Final report on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age: statement by Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee, It's the completion of the AI mandate, a mandate which lasted for a little over a year and a half, and it was a good mandate where we got to discuss about the implications of artificial intelligence on our economies and our societies and our democracies.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee, It is true that there are many who compare the arrival of artificial intelligence with the first industrial revolution, with the arrival of the engine. And it's true that if we look at the impact that artificial intelligence has the potential to have, it is such a profound impact that it's going to have. It's going to change the value chains in our economies. It's going to change the way we interact in society, with the way we interact among each other as individuals. And it's also going to change the way we do politics, the way our democracies are structured and function. So it is true. It has an enormous potential, which I think our report is also using.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee: And the concerns related to the potential for bias, potential for discrimination, which artificial intelligence may perpetuate basically moving from the physical world into the digital world. And I think that we know when we work on on the new legislation, we will have to make sure that we are going to put the basis for trustworthy AI, for an AI that is as much as possible free of the prejudices from the physical world of today.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee, Artificial intelligence is going to dominate again our economies. We need to make sure that it is there for everyone, for everyone to use, for everyone to benefit from it, and particularly when it comes to how our educational system will change, but also the way our labor markets are going to be impacted by artificial intelligence. We have to make sure that artificial intelligence is not going to be there to upset the balances within our societies, but to actually make that balance even more beneficial for everyone.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee, Artificial intelligence is unfortunately also used sometimes to power up those those factors that are destabilizing our democracies. I'm speaking of interference influencing our electoral processes, something that we've seen quite a lot: disinformation, fake news. So a lot of the of the potential in the online world, which artificial intelligence can also upset. And there is something that we need to, of course, be very watchful for.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoș TUDORACHE (Renew, RO), Chair of AIDA Committee: I think for all of us, all political groups that are going to come around, this process will need to watch for that balance because this is something where we can show as European Union, that we are legislating on the basis of the values that we believe in and also be a model for other like-minded countries around the world who are going to look at us and to how are we going to do this. We are the first ones that are going to adopt such profound rules regulating artificial intelligence. And again, I think we also have a duty of care when it comes to the kind of models and the kind of examples that we set for the rest of the world.