The EU and artificial intelligence: A human-centred perspective

This article analyses the potential benefits and drawbacks of artificial intelligence (AI). It argues that the EU should become a leading force in AI development. As a goal that captures the public imagination and mobilises a variety of actors, the EU should develop mission-based innovations that focus on using this technological leadership to solve the most pressing societal problems of our time whilst avoiding potential dangers and risks. This leadership could be achieved either by adapting the EU’s available instruments to focus on AI development or by designing new ones. Be it seeking a visionary future for AI or addressing concerns about it, progress should always be driven with the human-centred perspective in mind, that is, one that seeks to augment human intelligence and capacity, and not to supersede it.