Background and objective
In the first half of 2024, Belgium held the Presidency of the Council of the EU, the last one before the European and national elections. As part of this presidency, Belgium wanted to involve citizens in discussions about Europe and its future. The government therefore invited 60 citizens to discuss what artificial intelligence means to them and what they expect from the European Union on this issue during its next term.
AI is an emerging technology that is reshaping many areas of society, and the European Union wants to set a framework and a direction for it. The panel’s conclusions were shared with European institutions as well as with the many stakeholders working on this topic.
Training Modalities
- Designing the working methodology
- Coordinating with and briefing expert contributors
- Facilitating and running the panel
- Writing reports and producing deliverables
- Integrating the citizens’ panel into the framework of an EU presidency
Added value of the process
- First citizens’ panel organized as part of a European presidency
- A federal and bilingual process
- First time a citizens’ panel focused on artificial intelligence, a technical topic that also raises major social issues
- Panel members did not produce a list of recommendations, but rather a citizen vision of what is and is not desirable in the development of artificial intelligence
EN CHIFFRES
Results
The discussions led to 9 key messages about the future development of artificial intelligence in Belgium and in Europe. These messages covered different parts of society, including the economy, the environment, human relationships, and security.
Each message starts from a shared observation made by the citizens and then develops into a vision of how they would like AI to develop in the future, sometimes with ideas for decision-makers to explore. These are not technical recommendations about how the technology itself should work, nor are they highly specific measures to be implemented immediately. They are better understood as a general direction to follow.
The panel called for an ambitious strategy for rolling out AI in Europe, with stronger investment and better communication about the opportunities it offers. In this transition, it will be important to make sure that humans keep an essential role and that AI supports people rather than replaces them. Attention must also be paid to the environmental and social impact of new AI-based tools.
The panel members were also stricter than the AI Act in two areas, even though they had been informed about this recent European legislation. This was especially true regarding deepfakes, which citizens saw as a major risk, and the role humans should keep in decisions made with AI, through the principle of “human in the loop.”
