High-level expert group on artificial intelligence

Deliverables

During the first year of its mandate, the high-level expert group on artificial intelligence (AI HLEG) worked on two main deliverables:

Deliverable 1: Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI

The document puts forward a human-centric approach on AI and list 7 key requirements that AI systems should meet in order to be trustworthy.

Deliverable 2: Policy and Investment Recommendations for Trustworthy AI

Building on its first deliverable, the group put forward 33 recommendations to guide trustworthy AI towards sustainability, growth, competitiveness, and inclusion. At the same time, the recommendations will empower, benefit and protect European citizens. 

The results of the work of the AI HLEG were presented at the first European AI Assembly in June 2019. Following the Assembly, the European Commission extended the group’s mandate for one more year. This extended mandate allowed the group to increase its work and pilot the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI . The mandate of the AI HLEG ended in July 2020 with the presentation of two more deliverables:

Deliverable 3: The final Assessment List for Trustworthy AI (ALTAI) 

A practical tool that translates the Ethics Guidelines into an accessible and dynamic self-assessment checklist. The checklist can be used by developers and deployers of AI who want to implement the key requirements. This new list is available as a prototype web based tool and in PDF format.

Deliverable 4: Sectoral Considerations on the Policy and Investment Recommendations

The document explores the possible implementation of the recommendations, previously published by the group, in three specific areas of application: Public Sector, Healthcare and Manufacturing & the Internet of Things.

AI HLEG and the European AI Alliance

The overall work of the AI HLEG has been central to the development of the Commission’s approach to Artificial Intelligence. The concept of trustworthiness and the 7 key requirements, introduced by the Ethics Guidelines are guiding the upcoming legislative steps in AI.

The group’s recommendations have served as resources for policymaking initiatives taken by the Commission and its Member States. Among those initiatives, there was the Communication on Building Trust in Human Centric Artificial Intelligence, the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: a European approach to excellence and trust and the updated Coordinated plan on AI.

The AI HLEG has worked closely with the European community of AI stakeholders through the AI Alliance. The European AI Alliance is an online forum with over 4000 members representing academia, business and industry, civil society, EU citizens and policymakers.

The members of the AI Alliance offered detailed feedback for the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. Moreover, a set of materials such as policy documents, academic papers and discussions published on the forum, helped define the other deliverables of the AI HLEG.

In the first European AI Alliance Assembly, 500 members of the forum met in a live event that engaged the community into a direct feedback provision to the European Commission’s policymaking process on AI. Although the AI HLEG ended its mandate in July 2020, the community of the AI Alliance continued its activity.

In October 2020 over 1900 participants joined online the second European AI Alliance Assembly to discuss the main findings of the Public Consultation on the Commission’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence and future perspectives in building a European approach of excellence and trust in AI.