The European Union and the United States are set to announce joint action on the safety and standards of artificial intelligence and research and development

The European Union and the United States expect to announce cooperation on artificial intelligence on Friday at a meeting of the EU-US Technology and Trade Council (TTC), according to a senior Commission official who was briefing reporters on the background ahead of the conference.

The mood music points to growing cooperation between lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic when it comes to developing strategies to respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by powerful AI technologies – though the business picture remains highly distorted as US giants like OpenAI continue to dominate developments in cutting-edge AI.

The TTC was created a few years ago, after Trump, to provide a forum where EU and US lawmakers could meet to discuss transatlantic cooperation on trade and technology policy issues. Friday’s meeting, the sixth since the forum began its work in 2021, will be the last before the elections in the two regions. The possibility that a second Trump presidency could derail future EU-US cooperation may focus lawmakers’ minds on maximizing opportunities for joint action now.

“There will definitely be an announcement at the TTC about the Office of Artificial Intelligence and [US] “AI Safety Institute,” the senior Commission official said, referring to an EU watchdog being set up as part of the EU’s upcoming AI law, a comprehensive risk-based framework for regulating AI applications that will roll out around the world. . Mass later this year.

This element of the upcoming agreement – which appears set to focus on AI safety or oversight – is envisioned as a “cooperation or dialogue” between EU and US AI oversight bodies with the aim of strengthening the implementation of regulatory authorities on AI, According to the official. .

The second focus area of ​​the expected EU-US AI agreement will be around standardization, they said. This will take the form of joint work aimed at developing standards that can support developments by creating an “AI roadmap.”

The EU-US partnership will also have a third component, which will be labeled “AI for the Common Good.” This concerns joint work to enhance research activities but with a focus on implementing AI technologies in developing countries and the Global South, according to the Commission.

The official suggested that there is a common view on this AI technologies will be able to bring “quantifiable” benefits to developing regions – in areas such as healthcare, agriculture and energy. Therefore, this is also set to be a focus area for transatlantic cooperation to enhance the uptake of AI in the near term.

“Artificial Intelligence” stands for aligned interests?

The United States no longer views artificial intelligence as a trade issue, the European Union says. “Through the TTC, we were able to explain our policies, as well as show the Americans that, in fact, we have the same goals,” the commission official suggested. “Through the Artificial Intelligence Act and through [AI safety and security focused] Executive Order – which aims to mitigate the risks of AI technologies while supporting their uptake in our economies.

Earlier this week, the United States and the United Kingdom signed a partnership agreement on AI safety. Although EU-US cooperation appears to be more extensive – it is set to cover not only common safety and standardization goals, but also aims to align efforts to boost the uptake of AI across a wide range of third countries through joint support for “ “The common good.”

The Commission official raised additional areas of cooperation in emerging technologies – including standardization work in the field of e-ID (where the EU has been developing an e-ID proposal for several years) which they suggested would also be announced on Friday. “E-ID is a very strong area of ​​cooperation with a lot of potential,” they said, claiming that the US is interested in the “enormous new business opportunities” that the EU’s e-ID wallet will open up.

The official also noted that there is growing agreement between the EU and the US on how to deal with platform power — another area in which the EU has targeted rulemaking in recent years. “We see a lot of commonalities [between EU laws like the DMA, aka Digital Markets Act] “With the recent antitrust cases that have also been launched in the United States,” the official said, adding: “I think in many of these areas there is no doubt that there is a win-win opportunity.”

Meanwhile, a US-UK AI memorandum of understanding, signed by US Trade Secretary Gina Raimondo and British Minister of State for Technology Michelle Donelan on Monday in Washington, states that they aim to accelerate joint action on a range of AI safety issues, including This is in the area of ​​national security as well as broader societal concerns regarding the safety of artificial intelligence.

The UK Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said in a statement that the agreement between the US and the UK provides for at least one joint test of a publicly accessible AI model. press release. She also suggested the possibility of conducting personnel exchanges between the two countries’ AI safety institutes to cooperate in exchanging experiences.

A broader exchange of information is expected under the US-UK agreement – ​​on “capabilities and risks” associated with AI models and systems, and on “fundamental technical research on the safety and security of AI.” “This will support a common approach to testing the safety of AI, allowing researchers on both sides of the Atlantic – and around the world – to rally around a common scientific foundation,” DSIT PR continued.

Last summer, before hosting a global AI summit, the UK government said it had secured a commitment from US AI giants Anthropic, DeepMind and OpenAI to provide “early or priority access” to their AI models to support research into evaluation. And safety. It also announced a plan to spend £100m on an AI safety task force which it said would focus on so-called foundational or frontier AI models.

At the UK AI Summit last November, and in the wake of the US executive order on AI, Raimondo announced the creation of a US Institute for AI Safety to be based within her department, under the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which she said would aim to work closely with groups. Other AI safety created by other governments.

Neither the US nor the UK have proposed comprehensive legislation on AI safety yet – with the EU still leading the pack when it comes to legislation on AI safety. But more cross-border joint action seems a given.