Europe Spins Up AI Research Hub To Apply Accountability Rules on Big Tech (techcrunch.com) 8
As the European Union gears up to enforce a major reboot of its digital rulebook in a matter of months, a new dedicated research unit is being spun up to support oversight of large platforms under the bloc's flagship Digital Services Act (DSA). From a report: The European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT), which was officially inaugurated in Seville, Spain, today, is expected to play a major role in interrogating the algorithms of mainstream digital services -- such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
ECAT is embedded within the EU's existing Joint Research Centre (JRC), a long-established science facility that conducts research in support of a broad range of EU policymaking, from climate change and crisis management to taxation and health sciences. But while the ECAT is embedded within the JRC -- and temporarily housed in the same austere-looking building (Seville's World Trade Centre), ahead of getting more open-plan bespoke digs in the coming years -- it has a dedicated focus on the DSA, supporting lawmakers to gather evidence to build cases so they can act on any platforms that don't take their obligations seriously. Commission officials describe the function of ECAT being to identify "smoking guns" to drive enforcement of the DSA -- say, for example, an AI-based recommender system that can be shown is serving discriminatory content despite the platform in question claiming to have taken steps to "de-bias" output -- with the unit's researchers being tasked with coming up with hard evidence to help the Commission build cases for breaches of the new digital rulebook.
ECAT is embedded within the EU's existing Joint Research Centre (JRC), a long-established science facility that conducts research in support of a broad range of EU policymaking, from climate change and crisis management to taxation and health sciences. But while the ECAT is embedded within the JRC -- and temporarily housed in the same austere-looking building (Seville's World Trade Centre), ahead of getting more open-plan bespoke digs in the coming years -- it has a dedicated focus on the DSA, supporting lawmakers to gather evidence to build cases so they can act on any platforms that don't take their obligations seriously. Commission officials describe the function of ECAT being to identify "smoking guns" to drive enforcement of the DSA -- say, for example, an AI-based recommender system that can be shown is serving discriminatory content despite the platform in question claiming to have taken steps to "de-bias" output -- with the unit's researchers being tasked with coming up with hard evidence to help the Commission build cases for breaches of the new digital rulebook.
AI & Big Government Together (Score:2)
Makes me all warm and tingly inside. Pffft. Number of the beast. What silliness.
Re: (Score:2)
Could you elaborate on your fears? I mean the discussion only becomes interesting if it is specific.
Re: (Score:1)
Warm & tingly doesn't usually represent fear. It is more orgasmic. Which is kind of the opposite.
I assumed the comment made a point of Satanic control of a government or collection of governments which should bring up all kinds of conversations.
I guess you are new here.
What's the outcome of this? (Score:2)
Backdoor censorship? (Score:2)
Given that lots of content is served algorithmically (because the firehose approach isn't feasible), regulating algorithms could be used as a way to control what people see. You just define a political belief as "biased" or "misinformation" and silence it, even if the content itself is legal.
According to the article, the EU effort is being advised by the "AI ethics" people recently laid off from US tech firms. Which doesn't bode well for Europe's tech industry.
AI requires a post-scarcity society to survive it? (Score:2)
Or at least a much more moral and cooperative society than we have now?
What if the path we end up coming out of a singularity has a lot to do with our moral direction going into it?