The Danish government presents national strategy for artificial intelligence
At Denmark’s Digital Top Meeting 2019, the Danish government presented a new Danish National Strategy for AI. The strategy aims to ensure that Denmark will have a human-centric and common ethical foundation for AI. Furthermore, it strives to help Danish companies grow by developing and using AI and ensure that the Danish public sector will use AI to offer world-class services for the benefit of citizens and organisations in Denmark.
To reach these goals, 20 concrete initiatives divided into four focus areas have been defined. All to reduce barriers for levering the full growth and development potential offered by AI.
The focus areas are:
- A responsible foundation for AI.
- Access to more and better data.
- Strong competences and new knowledge.
- Increased investments.
New technologies provide us with a lot of opportunities to do things better and we have to exploit these opportunities. However, new technologies such as artificial intelligence also pose risks. Therefore, we must insist that these technologies are built on Danish values. Values such as trust in each other and in the systems.
Denmark: the starting point for a responsible use of AI
Danish businesses are experienced frontrunners in digital knowhow, supported by world-class AI and machine learning research and a wealth of innovative start-up companies. This is one of the reasons why the European Commission continues to acknowledge Denmark as the most digital economy and society in the EU.
With Denmark’s new strategy for AI, the Danish government takes initiative to build on this foundation, paving the way for a number of business opportunities for Danish as well as foreign companies looking to co-innovate and apply new digital solutions.
The following are among the concrete initiatives included in the strategy:
- Implementation of ethical principles and initiatives for the development and use of AI, including increased legal transparency.
- Establishment of a free joint Danish language resource.
- Easier access to a broader selection of public data.
- Implementation of signature projects in the Danish public sector to test AI solutions.
- Strengthen effort to secure investments to Danish companies.
One of the best ways to use AI responsibly is for public and private sector institutions to collaborate. In Denmark, there is a strong tradition for such partnerships and Denmark has some of the best researchers within AI and machine learning in the world – for example within Natural Language Processing. This is one of the reasons why, companies like Eldor Technology from Norway has chosen to place their AI R&D activities close to one of the largest Danish universities.
Click to read the original press release (in Danish).
KEY TAKEAWAY FROM DENMARK’S NEW Strategy for AI
The focus of the Danish National Strategy for AI is to ensure that the development and use of artificial intelligence happens with a basis in democratic values.
This means that algorithms must ensure equality by being objective, fact-based and independent on personal circumstances.
They should never be designed to reflect prejudice towards e.g. certain genders, persons with disabilities or ethnical backgrounds. Instead, the use of artificial intelligence should help to analyse, understand and make decisions and supplement humans – not replace them.