Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, will invite major AI companies to discuss industrial efforts to slow down the development of this technology in her speech about the state of the European Union on Wednesday.
Invitation to Dialogue and Support for Industry
In her draft statement, which has been made available, she will announce: "I invite leading labs to discuss how we can support the ongoing industry efforts to manage the pace of progress." She will also affirm recent warnings from some tech leaders about the need to slow down AI development.
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Last week, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, spoke about the need to slow down AI development and garnered support from Elon Musk, CEO of xAI, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Although von der Leyen is not expected to provide a clear assessment of these requests, she will emphasize that Europe is ready to "support the ongoing efforts of the industry."
International Collaborations and Desired Values
The President of the European Commission will also refer to international collaborations in testing and assessing advanced AI models. She will likely extend this invitation to the UK and Canada but will refrain from mentioning the United States and China, which are at the forefront of the AI competition.
Recent reports have indicated that the European Union and Canada have a high level of coordination in the field of AI. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, is expected to attend von der Leyen's speech in Strasbourg.
Von der Leyen will also announce that Europe should not be overly concerned about leading in AI development but should be "those who extract the most value from it." She added that the Commission will focus on five sectors that are expected to benefit the most from the use of AI: health, transportation, agriculture and food, advanced manufacturing, and defense and space.
