Groundbreaking EU initiative seeks to redefine AI success by integrating sustainability, gender equity, and societal engagement into future regulatory frameworks, offering a bold vision for AI governance in Europe.
A new €3 million EU research project led by the University College Dublin (UCD) Centre for Digital Policy will explore the benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from a societal perspective, aiming at AI capabilities and EU regulatory frameworks.
The FORSEE (Forging Successful AI Applications for European Economy and Society) project, which will begin in February 2025, is funded through the Beyond the Horizon: A Human-friendly Deployment of Artificial Intelligence and Related Technologies funding call under the Horizon Europe program.
The project aims to broaden the concept of AI "success" beyond technological and economic efficiency and provide insights that will structurally enhance capacities to anticipate, evaluate, and manage the future and long-term opportunities and challenges associated with AI.
Led by Dr Elizabeth Farries, Director of the the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, the consortium includes eight partners from universities, research institutions, and think tanks in six European countries. Dr Farries said, "FORSEE seeks to improve our understanding of what' successful AI' actually means to enhance regulatory perspectives and approaches. Focusing on sustainability, labor and economic efficiency, gender, and engagement with civil society, our research group will offer broadened awareness of the risks and opportunities of AI based on our grounded research."
Professor Niamh Moore-Cherry, Principal of UCD College of Social Sciences and Law, said, "I am delighted that this exciting consortium project led by Dr Elizabeth Farries has been funded. As the development of AI technology accelerates, it is crucial that we gain a better understanding of its economic, societal, and ethical implications as well as technological success. The FORSEE project, bringing international experts together to develop a critical building block for AI policy and regulatory frameworks in Europe, is part of a growing portfolio of research across a range of disciplines in our College focused on AI and data science and we are delighted to be hosting it."
Engaging with institutions, civil society organizations, and the broader public, the FORSEE team will discern the current criteria of AI success to highlight potential tensions between existing AI applications and EU priorities and evaluate impacts on the economy and society. The project will also examine the conditions that underpin or restrain success for small and medium enterprises within the EU to equip stakeholders and policymakers with the tools to address future risks and opportunities.
Co-PI Prof Eugenia Siapera, Professor of Digital Technology, Policy, and Society and Co-Director of the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, said, "In a context of rapid technological developments and regulatory responses, FORSEE aims to develop a strong empirical basis for fair, equitable, and sustainable AI governance in dialogue with institutional bodies and societal stakeholders."
Dr Alexandros Minotakis, a Postdoctoral researcher at the UCD Centre for Digital Policy and project team member, added, "This project will result in concrete recommendations on European policy, complementing the existing regulatory framework through its interventions."
The consortium brings together various partners with interdisciplinary expertise in legal and policy analysis, political economy, computational social science, information and communication, media, and platforms studies. It collaborates with computer science academics. Participating UCD researchers include Prof Aphra Kerr, Dr Arjumand Younus, Dr James Steinhoff, and Dr Pat Brodie.
Consortium partners include UCD (Ireland), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Tilburg University (The Netherlands), University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III (France), the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre (Germany), Demos Helsinki (Finland), TASC Europe Studies CLG (Ireland) and the European Digital SME Alliance (Belgium).