Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In April 2021, the European Commission published the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act), a proposed law that aims to regulate AI systems in the EU. Ireland very much supports a harmonised regulatory environment across the EU in relation to AI. It welcomes the risk-based approach to regulating AI. Given that AI has evolved significantly in the last months, it is important that this regulation remains flexible and future proofed to ensure that it continues to protect the safety and fundamental rights of the individual while at the same time, ensuring that innovation for good continues in this area.

Negotiations between the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Member States of the EU are in their final stages and there is ambition on all sides to reach agreement on the EU AI Act by the end of 2023 or early in 2024. When agreed, it will be the most comprehensive piece of AI legislation anywhere in the world.

The Government is also actively involved in negotiations on the Council of Europe legal convention on AI. Together, these guardrails will ensure trust in AI and in turn support ongoing, responsible innovation in this area.

At a global level, Our Common Agenda (OCA) is the UN Secretary-General’s (UNSG) vision for the future of global cooperation. It calls for inclusive, networked and effective multilateralism, and for turbocharging action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to better respond to and deliver for people and planet. It outlines possible solutions to address the gaps and risks that have emerged since 2015, calling for a Summit of the Future to be held in 2024, where a Pact for the Future will be the outcome.

This initiative includes the development of the UN’s Global Digital Compact which will focus on, among other things, agile governance of AI. The Compact will involve a range of stakeholders including governments, the private sector and civil society. The aim of the Compact is to identify ‘principles, objectives and actions for advancing an open, free, secure and human-centred digital future, anchored in human rights and that enables the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals’. Rwanda and Sweden are co-facilitating and coordinating the work around the Global Digital Compact, supported by the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology. Arising from the Compact, the UN Secretary General’s appointments to a High-Level Advisory Body on AI were made on 26 October 2023.

This Body will produce an analysis and advance recommendations for the international governance of AI by the end of 2023 and a final report by August 2024. The Body will offer diverse perspectives and options on how AI can be governed for the common good, aligning internationally interoperable governance with human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. Multilateral negotiations on the Compact are expected to take place at the end of this year, and quarter one and two of 2024, before its adoption at the Summit of the Future in September 2024. Ireland is strongly supportive of the UNSG’s work on the OCA, and has called on countries to be brave in our ambition in upcoming negotiations.