High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence

During the first year of its mandate, the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG) worked on two main deliverables:

Deliverable 1: Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI

The document puts forward a human-centric approach on AI and list 7 key requirements that AI systems should meet in order to be Trustworthy.

Deliverable 2: Policy and Investment Recommendations for Trustworthy AI

Building on its first deliverable, the group has put forward 33 recommendations that can guide Trustworthy AI towards sustainability, growth and competitiveness, as well as inclusion – while empowering, benefiting and protecting human beings.

The results of the work of the AI HLEG were presented at the first European AI Assembly in June 2019. Following the Assembly, the European Commission extended the group’s mandate for one more year. This extended mandate allowed the group to increase the granularity of its work and pilot the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI . The AI HLEG closed its mandate in July 2020 with the presentation of two more deliverables:

Deliverable 3: The final Assessment List for Trustworthy AI (ALTAI) 

A practical tool that translates the Ethics Guidelines into an accessible and dynamic (self-assessment) checklist. The checklist can be used by developers and deployers of AI who want to implement the key requirements in practice. This new list is available as a prototype web based tool and in PDF format.

Deliverable 4: Sectoral Considerations on the Policy and Investment Recommendations

The document explores the possible implementation of the recommendations, previously published by the group, in three specific areas of application: Public Sector, Healthcare and Manufacturing & the Internet of Things.

AI HLEG and European AI Alliance

The overall work of the AI HLEG has been central to the development of the Commission’s approach to Artificial Intelligence. The concept of Trustworthiness and the seven key requirements, introduced by the Ethics Guidelines are guiding the upcoming legislative steps in AI. The group’s recommendations have served as resources for policymaking initiatives taken by the Commission and its Member States. Among those initiatives, there was the Communication on Building Trust in Human Centric Artificial Intelligence, the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: a European approach to excellence and trust and the updated Coordinated plan on AI (expected to be presented in the first quarter of 2021).

The AI HLEG has worked closely with the European community of AI stakeholders through the AI Alliance. The European AI Alliance is an online forum with over 4000 members representing academia, business and industry, civil society as well as EU citizens and policymakers. Through a number of ad hoc consultations, the members of the AI Alliance offered detailed feedback for the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. Moreover, a set of materials such as policy documents, academic papers and discussions published on the forum, helped document the other deliverables of the AI HLEG.

In the first European AI Alliance Assembly in June 2019, 500 members of the forum met in a live event that engaged the community into a direct feedback provision to the European Commission’s policymaking process on AI. As the AI HLEG closed its mandate in July 2020, the community of the AI Alliance continues its activity and in October 2020 over 1900 participants joined online the second European AI Alliance Assembly, to discuss  the main findings of the Public Consultation on the Commission’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence and its future perspectives in building a European approach for excellence and trust. 

The Members of the AI High Level Expert Group