European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (CNECT), 2024.

A study commissioned by the European Commission highlights the significant potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve public sector services across the EU. The report emphasizes that AI can enhance citizen-government interactions, boost analytical capabilities, and increase efficiency in key areas such as healthcare, mobility, e-Government, and education. These sectors are identified as among the most ready for large-scale AI deployment, with applications ranging from autonomous vehicles and smart traffic systems to AI-driven healthcare solutions and education technologies.

European Parliament: Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union and Ünver, A., Artificial intelligence (AI) and human rights – Using AI as a weapon of repression and its impact on human rights – In-depth analysis, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This in-depth analysis (IDA) explores the most prominent actors, cases and techniques of algorithmic authoritarianism together with the legal, regulatory and diplomatic framework related to AI-based biases as well as deliberate misuses. With the world leaning heavily towards digital transformation, AI’s use in policy, economic and social decision-making has introduced alarming trends in repressive and authoritarian agendas. Such misuse grows ever more relevant to the European Parliament, resonating with its commitment to safeguarding human rights in the context of digital trans-formation. By shedding light on global patterns and rapidly developing technologies of algorithmic authoritarianism, this IDA aims to produce a wider understanding of the complex policy, regulatory and diplomatic challenges at the intersection of technology, democracy and human rights.

European Data Protection Supervisor, Annual report 2023, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is the European Union’s independent data protection authority responsible for supervising the processing of personal data by the European institutions, bodies, offices and agencies (EUIs). We advise EUIs on new legislative proposals and initiatives related to the protection of personal data. We monitor the impact of new technologies on data protection and cooperate with supervisory authorities to ensure the consistent enforcement of EU data protection rules.

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and Bollmann, U., Artificial intelligence and education – A teacher-centred approach to safety and health, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This report examines the opportunities and risks associated with the integration of new digital technologies for the health, safety and wellbeing of teachers in schools. This is viewed both from the perspective of occupational safety and health (OSH) and a pedagogical perspective. A comprehensive overview of the possible risks and opportunities for teachers from the integration of technologies, in particular based on artificial intelligence (AI), is provided based on a systematic analysis. Suggestions are also given of potential measures for improving the health, safety and wellbeing of teachers in the digital age.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, Simons, W., Turrini, A. and Vivian, L., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This discussion paper presents the key features of Artificial Intelligence (AI), highlighting the main differences with respect to previous IT and digital technologies. It presents the most relevant facts about AI diffusion across EU countries, and discusses the main economic implications, focusing especially on its impact on productivity and labour markets. While AI presents a formidable opportunity, it also entails major challenges, with implications for policy. This paper focuses on policies to remove bottlenecks to AI development and adoption, regulatory policies, competition policy, policies to deal with labour market and distributive implications.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology and Valayer, C., Benchmarking the impact of the next generation internet initiative – Final study report, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) is an EU initiative aimed at driving internet technology towards a human-centric internet aligned with European values. The NGI program provides financial support to grassroots open source projects covering various layers of the Internet. The program started operationaly in 2019 mobilising about 140M€ over 5 years and supporting more than 1000 projects. This benchmark study evaluates the impact of NGI projects based on the following criteria: alignment with EU Digital rights, enabling EU legislation, impact on standardisation, provision of alternative solutions, and sustainability. The study aims to provide quantitative and qualitative insights into the NGI portfolio's performance and technological building blocks, as well as recommendations for the future evolution of the initiative. The findings aim to inform policy-making decisions and shape future work programs. Overall, the NGI program has had a significant impact in shaping an EU tech landscape that is sustainable, sovereign, and aligned with EU policy and values.

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Publications Office of the European Union, 2022.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere and affects everyone – from deciding what content people see on their social media feeds to determining who will receive state benefits. AI technologies are typically based on algorithms that make predictions to support or even fully automate decision-making.

Council of the European Union, General Secretariat of the Council, Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

The unprecedented success of AI tools like ChatGPT caught many by surprise. But large language models (LLM) are here to stay and will continue to grow in sophistication. These models use natural language processing algorithms to interpret and respond to text-based human input. Whilst it is possible to grasp the basic principles which drive models such as ChatGPT, the companies behind them - mostly US-based - are becoming increasingly coy about releasing detailed information on the code and parameters which determine the way they generate their outputs. That makes it more challenging to assess the implications and impact of integrating large language models into the workplace. At the current rate of expansion, it’s only a matter of time before such models are integrated into the public sector with wide practical applications, advantages, and possible efficiency gains, from 24/7 availability to managing large volumes of inquiries simultaneously.

European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, Weber, S., Scherer, M., Groenland, J., Pascu, C. et al., Cyber insurance – Models and methods and the use of AI, European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, 2024.

Research and innovation (R&I) are important indicators for a society to measure progress, growth and development in any field. But progress and growth in our increasingly digital society cannot be achieved without trust. Investing in cybersecurity R&I is key to increasing knowledge about new and emerging threats and developing new technologies, tools and strategies to protect systems, networks and data. Failure to do so can have devastating consequences for building trust in the use of digital technologies by individuals, organisations and society as a whole. The main objective of this report is to introduce cyber risk and cyber insurance, provide an overview of existing research and modelling approaches, and identify gaps for upcoming research projects.

Marco Almada, European University Institute, 2024.

Publication metadata
The growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is a pressing matter for regulation in the European Union (EU) and beyond. Faced with the growing adoption of AI technologies in society, legislators often try to address AI-related issues through so-called technology-neutral regulation, that is, through regulatory instruments that apply equally to different technologies. The general meaning of technology neutrality is clear at first glance, yet scholars and policymakers in various domains have interpreted and developed the concept in different—and sometimes incompatible— ways. As a result, there is considerable divergence about what technology neutrality requires and what it adds to AI regulation. I address that divergence by proposing a new account of technology-neutral regulation.

European Union Institute for Security Studies, Andersen, L., Broeders, D. and Csernatoni, R., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This volume is based on papers presented and discussed at the conference Closing the Gap 2023, Emerging and Disruptive Digital Technologies: Regional Perspectives, on 6 and 7 December 2023 at Glazen Zaal in The Hague, the Netherlands. The conference was organised by Leiden University, as part of the EU Cyber Direct project, and brought together authors and representatives from numerous institutions around the world. The aim of the conference was to explore the diversity of interpretations regarding the challenges and opportunities associated with various digital emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs), de-centre approaches to their study (which have so far been largely Western or Europe-centric in nature) as well as enrich the state of the art. The chapters in this volume are divided into three sections focusing respectively on ‘national perspectives: policy meets technology’; ‘interstate and diplomatic arenas: navigating critical emerging technologies’; and ‘harnessing quantum technologies nationally and internationally’. In each of the chapters, authors address different geographical locations — be it cities, countries or blocks of countries — in relation to the application or consideration of a range of digital EDTs in different contexts.

European Court of Auditors, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

Embracing AI technology will likely determine the path of the EU’s future economic development. In 2018, the Commission adopted a coordinated plan with the member states to scale up investment in artificial intelligence and adapt the regulatory environment, which was updated in 2021. We assessed whether the Commission’s implementation of the framework was being effective. We found that the Commission’s actions covered key dimensions that are important for the development of an EU ecosystem for artificial intelligence. However, the multiple actions (many of which are still ongoing) had a limited effect in developing the EU AI ecosystem by the time of the audit and did not accelerate AI investment in line with global leaders.

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, 2024.

Welcome to the latest edition of the ECAT newsletter! We hope you're well-rested after the summer break, and ready for the latest algorithmic transparency updates. Over the summer, the ECAT team has continued to provide scientific and technical support for the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), by contributing to case investigations, informing the development of delegated acts and in other ways collaborating with our colleagues in DG Connect. For an updated overview of the Commission's main enforcement activities concerning very large online platforms and search engines (VLOPs and VLOSEs).

Europol, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This report presents the first published analysis of the Europol Innovation Lab’s Observatory function, focusing on deepfakes, the technology behind them and their potential impact on law enforcement and EU citizens. Deepfake technology uses Artificial Intelligence to audio and audio-visual content. Deepfake technology can produce content that convincingly shows people saying or doing things they never did, or create personas that never existed in the first place. To date, the Europol Innovation Lab has organised three strategic foresight activities with EU Member State law enforcement agencies and other experts.

European Commission, Joint Research Centre. Publications Office of the European Union, 2022.

The European approach for AI focuses on two main areas: excellence and trust, enabling the development and uptake of AI while ensuring people's safety and fundamental rights. However, research and policy documentations do not always use the same vocabulary, often generating misunderstandings among researchers, policy makers, and the general public.

European University Institute and Galariotis, I., Is artificial intelligence threatening democracy?, European University Institute, 2024.

In a democracy, human beings make decisions with the aim of serving the will of the people and promoting the collective welfare of society. While machines can learn from data and generate potential democratic solutions, they fall short in grasping the intricacies of the subjective reality of democratic politics. Entrusting Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems with decision-making carries the risk of following optimal solutions shaped by falsified objective realities that AI algorithms aim to optimise. Even if the data were comprehensive and sufficient, modelling approaches struggle to fully encapsulate the complexities of subjective realities within global democracies and societies.

European Parliament: Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union and Maciejewski, M., Law and ICT, European Parliament, 2024.

Exponential progress in the area of ICT improves access to data and information, which in its turn can lead to greater accessibility, reduced complexity, efficiency and respect of fundamental rights in policy, law making and implementation of law. Drafting and publication of laws need to be reformed from paper based format to modern digital media. Expertise, evidence and data should constitute mandatory elements of policy and law making. Ex-post quantified evaluation of legislation needs to be applied consistently. This study was prepared by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the JURI Committee.

European Commission: European Research Council Executive Agency, Mapping ERC frontier research artificial intelligence, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The European Research Council (ERC) is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. Since its establishment in 2007, it has been a cornerstone of the EU’s research and innovation funding programmes. The ERC gives its grantees the freedom to develop ambitious research projects that can lead to advances at the frontiers of knowledge and set a clear and inspirational target for frontier research across Europe. The ERC funds a rich and diverse portfolio of projects in all fields of science and scholarship, without any predefined academic or policy priorities. These projects can have an impact well beyond science and provide frontier knowledge and innovation to help solve societal challenges and inform EU policy objectives.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Digital Services, 2024.

This report presents the Public Sector Tech Watch (PSTW), the observatory dedicated to monitor, analyse, and disseminate the use of emerging technologies within the public sector in Europe. The observatory has been launched by the European Commission, and more specifically by the Directorate-General for Informatics (DG DIGIT) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC). In a context where the use of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain is growing, the launch of PSTW is an important milestone to accelerate the adoption of such technologies in the public sector in Europe.

Publications Office of the European Union, Graux, H., Gryffroy, P., Gad-Nowak, M. and Boghaert, L., Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

The general impact of artificial intelligence (AI) systems on businesses, governments and the global economy is currently a hot topic. This isn’t surprising, considering that AI is believed to have the potential to bring about radical, unprecedented changes in the way people live and work. The transformative potential of AI originates to a large extent from its ability to analyse data at scale, and to notice and internalise patterns and correlations in that data that humans (or fully deterministic algorithms) would struggle to identify. In simpler terms: modern AIs flourish especially if they can be trained on large volumes of data, and when they are used in relation to large volumes of data.

European Commission: Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Khabirpour, N., Pelizzari, L., Limbers, J., Richiardi, M. et al., Study on poverty and income inequality in the context of the digital transformation – Final report. Part A, Ensuring a socially fair digital transformation, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This study is made of two parts: part A and part B. Part A of the study analyses – through 27 country fiches – the extent to which each EU Member State is prepared for ensuring a socially fair digital transformation in the coming years, based on both its current situation and future prospects. In this analysis, key areas of focus include the labour market, digital skills of the population, social protection as well as cross-cutting dimensions, such as the digitalization level of businesses and the quality of digital infrastructures. Part B of the study reviews – through 30 case studies – some of the main actual and potential uses of digital technologies (including AI) by a country’s public sector for improving the design and the delivery of social benefits and active labour market policies, as well as for complementing the monitoring of poverty and income inequality (the case studies analysed are mainly in Member States but also in a few third countries).

European Commission: Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Khabirpour, N., Pelizzari, L., Limbers, J., Richiardi, M. et al., Study on poverty and income inequality in the context of the digital transformation – Final report. Part B, Use of digital technologies (including AI) by the public sector for improving the delivery and design of social policies and active labour market policies, as well as for complementing the monitoring of poverty and income inequality, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

This study is made of two parts: part A and part B. Part A of the study analyses – through 27 country fiches – the extent to which each EU Member State is prepared for ensuring a socially fair digital transformation in the coming years, based on both its current situation and future prospects. In this analysis, key areas of focus include the labour market, digital skills of the population, social protection as well as cross-cutting dimensions, such as the digitalization level of businesses and the quality of digital infrastructures. Part B of the study reviews – through 30 case studies – some of the main actual and potential uses of digital technologies (including AI) by a country’s public sector for improving the design and the delivery of social benefits and active labour market policies, as well as for complementing the monitoring of poverty and income inequality (the case studies analysed are mainly in Member States but also in a few third countries).

European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are one of the most disruptive general purpose applications at the service of research and innovation. It acts as a catalyst for scientific breakthroughs and is rapidly becoming a key instrument in the scientific process in all areas of research. In this Scientific Opinion (SO) the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors examines how the European Commission can accelerate the responsible take-up of artificial intelligence in science in the European Union. It focuses on a responsible uptake of AI in science – including providing access to highquality AI, respecting European values, and strengthening the position of Europe in science to boost innovation and prosperity in the EU. This SO is published in the context of the Scientific Advice Mechanism which provides independent scientific evidence and policy recommendations to the European institutions by request of the College of Commissioners.

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Bosso, F., Valisa, J., Ruberto, S., et al., Publications Office of the European Union, 2023.

This technical report discusses the potential use of Large Language Models for location detection with a focus on the JRC Terrorism and Extremism Database. The report highlights the current inaccuracies in the database’s location detection algorithm, which uses adhoc created embeddings, struggles with contextual issues, and has difculty with translated location names. These issues can lead to misclassifed events, negatively impacting the quality of the tool. The report suggests exploring more accurate and sophisticated approaches, taking advantage of recent advancements in Artifcial Intelligence, to increase the accuracy of the automated classifcation thus helping reducing human intervention.