A comprehensive industrial policy on artificial intelligence and robotics

In June 2018, the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) launched  an own-initiative report on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics and appointed as rapporteur Ashley Fox (ECR, United Kingdom). Amendments to the report can be submitted by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) until 6 December. Although the ITRE Committee is responsible for this file, several other Committees will give an opinion that will directly feed into the final report, which will be prepared by the ITRE Committee with the aim to be adopted in Plenary on 7 January.

Key elements

With the aim to adopt a motion for a European Parliament Resolution on comprehensive European industrial policy on artificial intelligence and robotics, the ITRE Committee dedicated a specific sub-section to health.

More specifically, the ITRE Committee proposed to the European Parliament to:

• acknowledge the impact AI has already had on designing personalised treatments and predicting heart attacks; and
  
• that when AI is combined with human diagnosis the error rate is 0.5%, compared with 3.5% for diagnosis by human doctors alone.
  
• Should the European Parliament adopt a motion with the following statements on health, it will recognise the preeminent role that AI could play in personalised medicine and healthcare.
  
• The ITRE Committee also prepared a specific section on “Technological path towards artificial intelligence and robotics’, in which:
  
• The need and importance of a greater investment in AI and robotics to remain competitive;
  
• The availability of quality data is recalled to be essential in the AI industry and that therefore the public authorities should ensure ways of producing, sharing and governing data by making data a common good.
  

Next steps

A final report is planned to be adopted on the 7 January 2019 in ITRE Committee. On basis of this final report, a motion for a European Parliament Resolution will be submitted to vote in plenary session.

Background

Own-initiative (INI) reports are non-legislative reports initiated by the Members of the European Parliaments (MEPs), which are aimed at defining the European agenda in the early phase of the legislative cycle. They often pave the way for new legislative proposals, exploring various topics of interest to Members, responding to Commission communications and expressing Parliament's position on various aspects of European integration.