“With Artificial Intelligence, we can improve our lives”

AI 4 Belgium Coalition proposes AI strategy at the request of Alexander De Croo and Philippe De Backer

Artificial intelligence (AI) can not only improve our lives, it can also help us find solutions to complex problems such as health care or environmental protection. Almost three-quarters of Belgians, however, still know little about AI and its benefits. In addition, many Belgians rightly ask themselves many questions about the impact of AI on their privacy and their job. To make AI a Belgian success story, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Minister of Digital Agenda Philippe De Backer asked a group of experts, now the AI 4 Belgium Coalition, for an AI plan, focusing on the right skills, ethical data use, awareness, innovation and better public service.

A new survey of IPSOS and the FPS Economy shows that 3 out of 4 Belgians are positive about new technologies. On the other hand, there is a lack of knowledge about artificial intelligence. 7 in 10 Belgians have already heard of AI, but what the term actually means remains a question mark for almost half of Belgians. It is striking that 70% of Belgians believe that AI can lead to an increase in quality of life. Yet many Belgians are also concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence on privacy, work and inequality.

More details of the survey attached.

To prepare Belgium for artificial intelligence, De Croo and De Backer grouped around forty experts from the academic and business world, startups and government.

Some notable names are Pattie Maes, who leads the ‘Media Lab’ at MIT; Luc Van Gool, specialist in image recognition at ETH Zurich and KULeuven; Marc Raisière, CEO of Belfius; Hans D’hondt, chairman of FPS finance and Pieter De Leenheer, CTO of Collibra who just raised 100 million dollars. The result is the AI ​​4 Belgium strategy (a true grass-roots plan that the AI ​​community has built together.)

With the strategy, the experts primarily want to remove the existing uncertainty and concern of citizens and businesses. Information and skills are therefore essential to ensure that everyone reaps the benefits of this opportunity. By highlighting precursors and examples, the ministers hope that Belgian organizations inspire each other. They also want to put Belgium on the international map as an AI la. The ambition of the AI ​​4 Belgium Coalition is to make AI a priority of this and the next government.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo: “Unknown is unloved. But due to a lack of knowledge about AI, Belgium may miss out on a lot of prosperity. Agoria estimates that digitization and AI can create 860,000 jobs by 2030. Instead of lagging behind, we want to pick up speed with the right knowledge and skills. ”

Philippe De Backer, Minister of Digital Agenda: “I believe that AI can become the job engine of the future for our country. With the rise of 5G, IOT, robotics and artificial intelligence, we are experiencing the fourth industrial revolution. It is more about brains and creativity than about muscle power and sweat. Teaching young people the right skills is essential in an innovative digital knowledge economy. That is why we need to focus more on coding, algorithmic thinking and science and technology in our education. In this way, we prepare for the future. ”

With this plan, both ministers want to put AI on the agenda of the next government.

Summary of recommendations of the AI 4 Belgium Coalition:

We have world-class assets that need to be nurtured and developed. And with the right level of ambition and thoughtful implementation, we can change our society for the better. We structure our recommendations in five chapters. We start with skills, putting people first, and with a responsible way of sharing data. Technology should be at our service, not the other way around. The next three chapters focus on technology adoption, innovation and better public service. In conclusion, we set out a few implementation principles, such as the need for overall ambition.

Set up a new learning deal – Technology and AI are transforming society and our job market. We currently lack both the capacity and tools to support this transition and our schools are not preparing the next generations for the 21^st century. This is the reason why we propose a new learning deal; a universal skills building program for adults and more digital – as well as human – skills for our youth.

Develop a responsible data strategy – Trust is the cornerstone of any transformation. We believe in the need for a robust and up-to-date legal framework, ethical principles and more transparency. Moreover, data is the energy that will fuel the fourth industrial revolution. But data often remains inaccessible. We need to build a data ecosystem that facilitates more responsible data-sharing with reinforced open data policies, more collaborations and a platform with well-structured tools and approaches.

Support private sector AI adoption – It can be hard for companies, particularly SMEs, to start working with AI. It can be perceived as complex; companies might lack the internal resources and the iterative approach can be too costly. Hence, we propose to demystify AI through a lighthouse approach (training programs, large-scale events and social-impact projects). Secondly, we believe in more collaboration and accessibility to AI through a national AI hub. Lastly, we need to facilitate experimentation.

Innovate and radiate – We have world-class researchers, but our research is not at scale. Also, we have yet to develop, attract and retain enough AI talent. Lastly, it is hard for innovative start-up companies to grow beyond the early stages. Hence, we propose to position Belgium as Europe’s AI lab through sandboxes and large-scale collaboration within academia, leveraging Belgian transposition of the GDPR. Next, we recommend creating more AI-related training programs, more focus on practical applications and more selective migration. Lastly, we suggest supporting the growth of our AI companies through an investment fund and by differentiating our expertise.

Improve public service and boost the ecosystem – Too few public organisations are currently experimenting with AI. Firstly, we propose that public institutions rethink their own roles and evolve towards a platform approach. Secondly, we need to give public institutions the tools to experiment; such as a rolling fund and more innovation-friendly procurement. Lastly, we recommend creating a Chief Digital Officer role to organise internal transformations and launch large-scale transversal projects.

A few principles to ensure a sustainable implementation: ensuring continued trust from the public, a European approach, collaboration between all stakeholders, a grass-roots/community-led approach, focus on specific areas (such as healthcare/life sciences) and, lastly, daring to be ambitious and audacious. This will require an investment of at least EUR 1 billion by 2030.