ISDE President was invited to the AI4Gov Open Event in Madrid Spain

On 21 October, 2022, Dr. Alessandro Annoni, President of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) was invited to participate in the AI4Gov Open Event, in Madrid, dedicated to "building a European AI ecosystem for the public interest" organized by the partners of AI4Gov (https://ai4gov-master.eu/).

Representatives from the public and private sectors discussed AI developments in public services and presented both opportunities and challenges. 

Dr. Annoni participated in the panel on AI Ethics, moderated by Pierre Rossel, with Roland Ismer (Chair for Public and Tax Law, Friedrich-Alexander-University), Rony Medaglia (Professor, Digital Government, Copenhagen Business School) and Dr. Clara Neppel (Senior Director of the Vienna IEEE Office). 

Dr. Alessandro Annoni, President of ISDE participated in the panel on AI Ethics

In his speech on the ethical use of AI, Dr. Annoni responded by proposing a comparison between AI technologies and nuclear technologies, underlining the importance of understanding the impacts and assessing the risks before making sectoral regulation when appropriate. Lessons learned from the early use of nuclear technologies in medicine without knowing their impact could be inspirational for future AI regulations.

At the event, Carme Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation, Government of Spain gave a speech. She explained how the Spanish government is embracing AI to improve the services provided by the Public Administration in order to improve their efficiency and make life easier for citizens. 

She also talked about the government's actions to prepare the industry for the use of this technology through the upcoming regulatory sandbox on AI which aims to help in the implementation of the future Act on Artificial Intelligence thus avoiding the difficulties encountered in the past on the implementation of the GDPR.