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Artificial intelligence: The Commission welcomes the opportunities offered by the final Assessment List for Trustworthy AI (ALTAI)

The European Commission welcomes today the Assessment List for Trustworthy AI (ALTAI), a check list for business and organisations to self-assess the trustworthiness of their artificial intelligence (AI) systems under development. This will further strengthen the benefits that AI yields to the economy and society as a whole.

The concept of Trustworthy AI, introduced by the High-Level Expert Group on AI (AI HLEG) through the Ethics Guidelines on Trustworthy AI, is based on seven key requirements:

  1. human agency and oversight,
  2. technical robustness and safety,
  3. privacy and data governance,
  4. transparency,
  5. diversity, non-discrimination and fairness,
  6. environmental and societal well-being and,
  7. accountability.

ALTAI is the first instrument that translates AI principles into an accessible and dynamic checklist that developers and deployers of AI can use. ALTAI will help to ensure that users benefit from AI without being exposed to unnecessary risks. The Assessment List has been revised following a piloting process that involved more than 350 stakeholders. ALTAI is available in a document version and as a prototype of a web-based tool.

Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said:

I am grateful for the work of the High Level Expert Group which forms the basis of our policy on AI. The interest of stakeholders in AI and in the next regulatory steps is clear. Over 1200 contributions to the public consultation on the White Paper on AI demonstrate the importance of our policy initiative for the public. Based on this work we can now move forward with creating a regulatory framework where everyone can reap the benefits of trustworthy AI.

Background

In 2018, the Commission presented for the first time an AI strategy, and developed a coordinated plan together with Member States. Following the AI strategy, AI HLEG, comprised of 52 independent experts, was appointed in June 2018 with a mandate to support the European Commission by producing two deliverables: (i) The Ethics Guidelines on Trustworthy AI and (ii) the Policy and Investment Recommendations on Trustworthy AI. The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence presented its Ethics Guidelines on Trustworthy AI in April 2019 which were welcome by the Commission in the Communication on Building Trust in Human Centric AI. The Policy and Investment Recommendations were published in June 2019.

Trustworthy AI is a central concept of the European approach, setting the basis for a lawful, ethical and robust use of AI. In February 2020, the European Commission presented its digital strategy, including the White Paper on AI – A European approach to excellence and trust, which is based on the principles above. The Commission was keen to understand the public’s views on the White Paper and held a public consultation, which received over 1250 replies from the EU’s 27 Member States and other countries. These replies reflect views from different sectors of the economy and society. The results of the public consultation are now undergoing an extensive analysis process. A summary report, along with the overall consultation comments, was also published today on the Digital Single Market website.

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