To the President of the EU Commission To the President of the EU Parliament
On Artificial Intelligence (AI), the EU is going to enact the AI Act soon and launched a "package of measures to support European startups and SMEs in the development of trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) that respects EU values and rules" (1); it is a good opportunity to foster the creation of AI systems that implement public interest and citizens' empowerment, having European democracy at its core.
We believe that to develop "trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) that respects EU values and rules", clear and concrete goals on what is to be developed are required.
We therefore address you with the proposal to develop AI systems as a public service for the right to knowledge and democracy: Civic AI systems.
Whithin the package of measures foreseen, we call for the creation of Civic AI systems that are open source, with all the helpful information to maximize the possibility to study, understand, reproduce, and verify such AI systems, trained on data that the scientific community can access, including documents of the public administrations of the Member States and the EU, such as legislation, case law, cultural and scientific heritage.
An initial application of the Civic AI systems could consist of the realization of services that support citizens and enterprises in their relations with the European and Member State institutions. Such public services should enable everyone to interact easily, and could facilitate popular participation (resolutions, laws, referendums, civic assemblies drawn by lot, petitions, etc.).
The governance of the development and management of the Civic AI systems and the services based on them should allow citizen participation and should be designed to:
- Foster the achievement of common good and democratic values;
- Proactively promote citizens' fundamental rights;
- Foster the development of a competitive economic industry;
- Reduce the risk of oligopoly in the market of AI systems and services based on them;
- Limit the deliberate creation of misinformation and disinformation that contribute to manipulating the Democratic debate.
Notes:
Signatures
- Marco Cappato, Eumans - President
- Marco Ciurcina, Rialto Venture Found - Entrepreneur
- Paolo Coppola, Professor
- Gianluca Misuraca, AI4Gov - Consultant
- Giancarlo Ruffo, University of Piemonte Oriente "A. Avogadro" - Professor
- Giovanni Semeraro, University of Bari - Professor
- Simona Morini, Univesity IUAV, Venice - Philosopher
- Giulio Beltrami, Computing Professional
- Patrizia Feletig, Association "I Copernicani" - President
- Nino Gualdoni, Manager
- Marco Carapezza, University of Palermo - Professor of Philosophy of Language
- Piero Perconti, University of Messina - Professor of Philosophy of the Mind
- Alessio Plebe, University of Messina - Professor of Philosophy of Science
- Amedeo Santosuosso, University School for Advanced Studies IUSS of Pavia - Professor of AI, decision making and law
- Antonio Chella, University of Palermo - Full professor
- Denis Roio, Dyne.org Foundation
- Marco Mezzalama, Emeritus Professor of Computer Engineering
- Gianluca Sgueo, SciencePo - Policy Advisor