UK and EU AI communities will only be globally significant if they work as one

The US and China will dominate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) unless the European Union (EU) and the UK can find a way to continue to work as one after Brexit, according to one of the founding academics of a European collaboration project.

Both communities are too small to generate the capital and skills needed to compete with the US and China and could miss an opportunity to take AI in a different, more balanced, direction, said Holger Hoos, professor in machine learning at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“If you were to take the UK community out of the EU’s AI community, you would be left with two pieces, neither of which would have critical mass,” he said.

Hoos is one of three founders of the Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe (CLAIRE). Its biggest challenge, he said, is “to make sure that European AI efforts reach critical mass”, adding: “This is rather than diluting everything to the point where the enormous amount of money that is going to be invested doesn’t have much of an effect.”

Asked whether the UK AI community will play a role in the organisation after Brexit, Hoos said: “You bet, at least if we have anything to say about it.

“If you look at where AI talent and capability sits in Europe the UK has been one of the most important places since the beginning. But as nice and important as the UK is, I think the AI community there is too small to compete and the EU community without the UK also doesn’t have critical mass.” From CLAIRE’s point of view, that would be a complete disaster, he said.

The organisation has hundreds of UK members, including academics from the University of Oxford and Imperial College.

Hoos said the project, although mainly funded by the EU, would be based on geographical Europe rather than just the EU. “Eighteen months ago, we saw various paths through Brexit and from the beginning, it was very important to conceive something that would draw from and support Europe as a geographic region,” he said.

“We made it very clear that no matter what happens with Brexit and the relationship between the EU and the UK, in AI we should work together.”

The EU and the UK will have to work closely together if they are to have any significance in global AI developments, said Hoos. The US and China are the biggest players, but there is an opportunity for another region to set a new path, he added. “China and the US are very different to each other and different to Europe in how AI is seen going forward.”

Hoos said that in the US, a lot of AI research is done by private companies such as Google and Facebook, which gives it a particular flavour. “There is nothing wrong with this, but it is biased towards business and, to a lesser degree, consumer interests,” he said.

In China, AI research is very much state-controlled, said Hoos. “So it is biased towards what they consider to be the most useful things for society as a whole,” he said.

“We think that in Europe, we should find a balance. This is not just between two poles of society versus private enterprises, but also including the needs of private citizens.”

Hoos said CLAIRE wants a brand of AI in Europe that is also pointed firmly at the common good, such as helping to meet sustainability goals or introducing AI that works for non-government organisations for the benefit of citizens.

“We want to help ensure that Europe can play a leading role in AI research and innovation,” he said. “We believe, as many do, that AI is a very important set of technologies going forward, not only for economic prosperity, but for the benefit of society. We therefore think it is very important that Europe as a geographic region is doing the right thing with AI in order to remain competitive and do the right thing for European citizens.”

Europe’s inherent advantages and focus will help it achieve this, said Hoos. “Europe has the opportunity if it starts out on this path and it also has the advantage of having a diversity of perspective and talent,” he said. “If you find something that works for all the slightly different interests and cultures in Europe, it is very likely to work far beyond as well.”

CLAIRE was set up in June 2018 with an open letter from 600 of Europe’s best AI scientists to rally more people to the cause. Its members were initially just academics, but then grew to 3,000 including people working in industry as well as those in politics. “But the majority of people basically have a PhD in AI,” said Hoos.

So far, the organisation, which has a number of small offices across Europe, has been funded by its members and the academic institutions that support it. Ultimately, the organisation hopes to receive funding from the EU and its member states as well as associated states, such as the UK after Brexit.