The European Union’s Office for Artificial Intelligence was officially launched on February 21, and among its main tasks will be overseeing the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act, identifying potential risks and breaches of the rules and encouraging the use of reliable artificial intelligence.
The office will employ around 100 people, 20 of whom will be transferred from the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect), while the rest, including national experts, will be recruited in the coming weeks.
The new office will be responsible, among other things, for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the rules of the AI Act on general purpose artificial intelligence models and creating codes of practice, guidelines and evaluation tools.
“The European Office for Artificial Intelligence will be a center of expertise in the field of artificial intelligence across the EU. It will play a key role in the implementation of the AI Law, especially for general purpose artificial intelligence, it will encourage the development and use of credible artificial intelligence and international cooperation”, it is stated on page of the European Commission.
The office will also work to advance measures and policies to harness the social and economic benefits of AI across the EU, provide advice on best practices and foster innovative AI-enabled ecosystems to increase EU competitiveness and economic growth.
DG Connect Director General Roberto Viola said the AI Office was created “to actually use power, including in terms of potential sanctions or market interventions”.
Those would be “extreme scenarios”, Viola said, but his message was clear: companies using artificial intelligence should pay attention, writes the Brussels portal Politiko.
The office was established within the European Commission and forms the “foundation of a unique European artificial intelligence management system,” the EC announced.
In its work, it will collaborate with member states and the wider professional community and will ensure a strategic, coherent and effective European approach to AI at the international level, and is expected to become a global reference point.
The office started its work before the official adoption of the Law on AI, on which the European Parliament and the Council of the EU reached a political agreement in December.
