Summary of our AI Act informative session (slides and photos included)

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We had about 75 attendees joining our informative event about the European Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) on 25th April. This also included many students who are interested in the implications of this landmark regulation: is it too relaxed or too constraining?

First, AIA team leader Gabriele Mazzini (contact information on the last slide) gave a 20-minute keynote explaining the AIA but also the institutions surrounding it:

  • What are the roles and differences between the European Council, Parliament and Commission
  • What is the AIA’s angle, what framework was it based on
  • What is new to the AIA compared to other such regulation

Attendees were then able to ask questions to one of the very people who led the AIA’s creation.

After this, Gemma Newlands (contact information on the bottom right in the slides) from the University of Oxford Internet Institute presented some of the implications of generative AI:

  • Maintaining the resilience of internet infrastructure (emphasising access to hard-to-reach places such as islands) is an understated problem
  • Is the efficiency augmentation in the workplace thanks to AI one which benefits the employee more (potentially degrading work quality) or the employer?
    • An implication of the latter is the potential for algorithmic as opposed to human management of employees, i.e. employees serving AI procedures rather than AI streamlining employee-designed procedures
  • Is AI as a skillset, a mandatory “job specification” for employees or is this a “bonus” at work- both of these scenarios implicate new forms of inequality

Following a Q&A with Gemma, she, Gabriele Mazzini, Vincenzo Tiani (Panetta Law Firm), Koen Hindriks, Stefan Schlobach, Guszti Eiben and Christine Moser (all from the VU) gathered to share their opinions about AI in an open panel format, moderated by Silvia De Conca. Some snippets from the panel were:

  • The idea that AI surpasses humans in capability will hopefully end human hubris. That is, it will end the belief that we as humans are special.
  • But a reminder that amidst techno-optimism, we must ask ourselves what problem AI is solving. With the example given of TikTok because it does not solve a real-world problem.

Finally, attendees were able to open up discussions amongst themselves and with the speakers during the borrel, over drinks and snacks.