Article by Silvia Ellena: “A majority of EU lawmakers adopted a report on Thursday (14 September) calling for more participatory tools at EU level. The report, which has no direct legislative impact, passed with 316 votes in favour, 137 against and 47 abstentions. “We send a clear message to upgrade our democracy, a new EU Agora that involves citizens in European democratic life,” said Alin Mituța (Renew), co-rapporteur on the file, following the adoption of the report. In the report, the Parliament called for the creation of a European Agora, an annual “structured participation mechanism” composed of citizens, who... (More >)
City CIOs urged to lay the foundations for generative AI
Article by Sarah Wray: “The London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) has produced a collection of guides to support local authorities in using generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, Midjourney and Dall-E. The resources include a guide for local authority leaders and another aimed at all staff, as well as a guide designed specifically for council Chief Information Officers (CIOs), which was developed with AI software company Faculty. Sam Nutt, Researcher and Data Ethicist at LOTI, a membership organisation for over 20 boroughs and the Greater London Authority, told Cities Today: “Generative AI won’t solve... (More >)
EU leadership in trustworthy AI: Guardrails, Innovation & Governance
Article by Thierry Breton: “As mentioned in President von der Leyen’s State of the Union letter of intent, Europe should lead global efforts on artificial intelligence, guiding innovation, setting guardrails and developing global governance. First, on innovation: we will launch the EU AI Start-Up Initiative, leveraging one of Europe’s biggest assets: its public high-performance computing infrastructure. We will identify the most promising European start-ups in AI and give them access to our supercomputing capacity. I have said it before: AI is a combination of data, computing and algorithms. To train and finetune the most advanced foundation models, developers need... (More >)
Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures
Blog by Ville Aula: “Evidence-based policymaking is a popular approach to policy that has received widespread public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in the fight against climate change. It argues that policy choices based on rigorous, preferably scientific evidence should be given priority over choices based on other types of justification. However, delegating policymaking solely to researchers goes against the idea that policies are determined democratically. In my recent article published in Policy & Politics: Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures we explored the tension between politics and evidence in the national legislatures. While evidence-based policymaking has... (More >)
Mapping the landscape of data intermediaries
Report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre: “…provides a landscape analysis of key emerging types of data intermediaries. It reviews and syntheses current academic and policy literature, with the goal of identifying shared elements and definitions. An overall objective is to contribute to establishing a common vocabulary among EU policy makers, experts, and practitioners. Six types are presented in detail: personal information management systems (PIMS), data cooperatives, data trusts, data unions, data marketplaces, and data sharing pools. For each one, the report provides information about how it works, its main features, key examples, and business model considerations. The... (More >)
A Blueprint for the EU Citizens’ Assembly
Paper by Carsten Berg, Claudia Chwalisz, Kalypso Nicolaidis, and Yves Sintomer: “The European Union has recognised that citizens are not sufficiently involved or empowered in its governance—how can we solve this problem?Today, ahead of President Von Der Leyen’s 2023 State of the Union address on 13 September, we’re proud to co-publish a paper with the European University Institute written by four leading experts. The paper offers a blueprint for a solution: establishing the EU Citizens’ Assembly (EUCA) to share power with the other three institutions of the European Council, Commission, and Parliament. After all, “a new push for democracy”... (More >)
Private sector access to public sector personal data: exploring data value and benefit sharing
Literature review for the Scottish Government: “The aim of this review is to enable the Scottish Government to explore the issues relevant to the access of public sector personal data (as defined by the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR) with or by the private sector in publicly trusted ways, to unlock the public benefit of this data. This literature review will specifically enable the Scottish Government to establish whether there are (I) models/approaches of costs/benefits/data value/benefit-sharing, and (II) intellectual property rights or royalties schemes regarding the use of public sector personal data with or by the private... (More >)
Wartime Digital Resilience
Article by Gulsanna Mamediieva: “Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, technology was already a growing part of the Ukrainian economy and was central to the government’s vision to reimagine the way citizens and businesses interact with the state in the digital era: paperless, cashless, and without bureaucracy. Even before the conflict, we in government believed that technology holds the promise of making government more transparent, efficient, and accountable, empower citizens, increase participation, and combat corruption. However, technology has become even more central to helping the country defend itself and mitigate the effect of Russian attacks on civilians. As a... (More >)
Experts: 90% of Online Content Will Be AI-Generated by 2026
Article by Maggie Harrison: “Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet” has been pretty standard advice for quite some time now. And according to a new report from European law enforcement group Europol, we have all the reason in the world to step up that vigilance. “Experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026,” the report warned, adding that synthetic media “refers to media generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence.” “In most cases, synthetic media is generated for gaming, to improve services or to improve the quality of life,”... (More >)
How to improve economic forecasting
Article by Nicholas Gruen: “Today’s four-day weather forecasts are as accurate as one-day forecasts were 30 years ago. Economic forecasts, on the other hand, aren’t noticeably better. Former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke should ponder this in his forthcoming review of the Bank of England’s forecasting. There’s growing evidence that we can improve. But myopia and complacency get in the way. Myopia is an issue because economists think technical expertise is the essence of good forecasting when, actually, two things matter more: forecasters’ understanding of the limits of their expertise and their judgment in handling those limits. Enter Philip... (More >)
