Germany started planning in 2018 on how to fully exploit the potential of AI, with a very carefully designed strategy to boost growth and competitiveness, while ensuring a responsible and trustworthy development of AI. This was described in the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, which is a large-scale project involving three ministries: Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy. The three institutions have put in place a consultation process with a different set of stakeholders and updated the national AI strategy in December 2020, which focuses on three main objectives to remain relevant and keep pace with the development of AI:
- Ensuring Germany’s future competitiveness while at the same time making Germany and Europe at the forefront of the development and use of AI technologies;
- Ensure that the use and development of AI is responsible and focused on the common good;
- Integrate AI from an ethical, legal, cultural and institutional perspective through broad societal dialogue and active policy efforts.
Since 2021, EUR 5 billion has been allocated to the implementation of the AI strategy, including EUR 2 billion for economic stimulus and the ‘future technologies’ package responding to the pandemic. The scale of resources allocated highlights the importance that Germany attaches to AI, but one of the very interesting and innovative aspects is a human -centred approach, the explicit aim of which is to build the necessary trust among citizens and equip them with training and skills to communicate with AI confidently and conveniently in a professional context and in civil society. This is part of a broader programming of digital skills, with AI literacy as a key component.
Deployment and co-creation of AI applications in the workplace
The strategy has a strong focus on strengthening digital technologies in the workplace, after a study carried out by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and Leibniz’s Centre for European Economic Research showed that in 2019 only 5.8 % of companies used AI technologies. The study attributes this to a lack of AI expertise in SMEs and a number of projects have been launched:
- Tomorrow’s hubs support SMEs in deploying digital technologies and AI-based systems. The hubs use a participatory and co-creative method to allow companies to design processes with their employees.
- Experimental and educational areas: these are located in companies and administrations to enable organisations and their employees to develop and test solutions for the deployment and deployment of human-centric AI processes in the workplace. These spaces help to deploy and transfer AI technologies, also act as information platforms and support SMEs in addressing the challenges of the digital transformation. Researchers monitor processes, challenges and opportunities to develop a scientific method that can be used for other businesses.
- AI Coaches: In order to familiarise SMEs with new technologies such as artificial intelligence and to facilitate the entry of these technologies into SMEs, they work directly with SMEs (over 3400 in May 2020) to raise awareness of the technological and economic potential of AI. The replies were exaggerated.
Artificial intelligence, diversity and applications for civil society
More aspects and sectors of society are involved in the AI strategy: theKidd (UI at the service of diversity) project is based on the assumption that algorithms can in fact discriminate against. Digital systems should take different perspectives into account at an early stage of the design process and involve people from different backgrounds. Participating companies are testing co-creators to establish a digital system to involve a diverse pool of employees and experts. The ultimate aim is to create a standardised ‘Kidd process’ to prevent discrimination and enable a human-centred, fair, transparent and comprehensible application of digital systems in businesses.
Artificial intelligence as a force for the common good: the initiative to support civil society in developing AI skills and competences to harness the potential of AI is called the Civic Innovation Platform (CIP). Here, stakeholders from different backgrounds can jointly put forward their proposals for the development of a jointly oriented AI application based on common interest through an online platform. Participants can come from different actors, such as social organisations, municipalities, start-ups, NGOs, but also individual citizens. So far, few account has been taken of these stakeholders in the funding process. By including it, the CIP broadens the pool of beneficiaries and ensures an innovative approach to the development of human-centric artificial intelligence. One positive outcome of this initiative is that the involvement of civil society can foster broad acceptance and trust in technology among the population.
What are the next steps for the German AI strategy? The aim will now be to institutionalise evaluation processes and identify best practices.
⚠ disclaimer: The text has been automatically translated from the European platform Digital Skills and Jobs. If you have found errors in the text, please contact digikoalice@npi.cz