Mireille Hildebrandt provided invited feedback to the European Commission on its White Paper on AI including some remarks on the European Data Strategy. Her dedicated input can be found here.

The main points of her feedback are that (1) the beneficial character of AI cannot be assumed, but must be mathematically as well as empirically verifiable, (2) this means that Europe should refrain from advocating the uptake of AI per se, instead restricting itself to reliable AI that ‘does’ what it is claimed to do, while taking a precautionary approach that involves taking uncertainty seriously and involving those who may suffer adverse effects, (3) legislation for AI should best be inspired by the GDPR safeguards for automated decision making, meaning that the scope of such legislation should not be restricted to vague definitions of AI but apply whenever the behaviour of automated computing systems has a major effect on natural persons. She also speaks out for AI that functions as ‘a machine in the loop’, instead of AI systems that keep ‘a human in the loop’.