Brussels appears to have abandoned the majority of its AI ambitions, with attention in the EU capital shifting to steering the global regulation of the technology instead.
Senior Eurocrats have been hinting at the shift in policy over the last month, with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen claiming during a keynote speech last week that developing cutting-edge AI systems did not really matter for the bloc, and that focus should be on regulation and industrial integration instead.
This stance has seemingly been confirmed as Brussels new policy on the matter, with a closed-door meeting allegedly seeing Commissioners briefed on the new position.
According to Commission-aligned outlet Politico, the gathered officials were addressed by senior Commission AI advisor Jim Hagemann Snabe, who informed them that there should be a shift in approach to the technology that would see the EU drop its attempts at rivalling China and the United States.
Instead, the focus should not be on which bloc can best develop artificial intelligence, but on “who [can] draw the greatest value from it”.
Another briefing given by a different AI expert also echoed this sentiment, telling Commissioners that they must “invert the logic” of needing to be at the forefront of AI research, with focus instead to be on integrating foreign tech platforms into more traditional European manufacturing and farming sectors.
The Commission meanwhile appears to be maintaining its ambitions to be at the forefront of global AI regulation, with Eurocrats increasingly emphasising the interoperability of the bloc’s artificial intelligence legislation and its other censorship regimes, such as the Digital Services Act.
Brussels’ forthcoming KIDS Act will meanwhile mandate that all EU users of chatbot platforms prove their identity using government digital identification systems, with the new restrictions being billed as necessary to protect children online.
Some European politicians are looking to coordinate their crackdown on the technology with the Vatican, with Pope Leo XIV having spearheaded an aggressive approach to curtailing artificial intelligence on behalf of the Catholic church.
This is despite a recent admission that Cardinal Michael Czerny, who leads the church’s commission on AI, does not habitually use artificial intelligence.
