 Hello everyone and welcome to this talk on AI and free software in the European Union in the next 20, 25 minutes I will tell you more about why free software plays such an important role when we talk about AI and what happens at the moment in the European Union as there are some yeah lawmaking processes on the way. My name is Alexander Sander I'm Senior Policy Consultant at the Free Software Foundation Europe and we are a charity that empowers users to control technology and yeah part of our activity then is also to make sure that we can control AI. So this is a very important topic for us at the moment and yeah I said there's lawmaking on the way and we are trying to influence this process to make sure that free software plays a role and for sure we have some demands so and yeah if you talk about AI and free software first of all we define oh for us it is important that AI must respect fundamental rights so this also means that AI needs to be transparent it need to be fair and it need to be accessible because this helps us to make sure that we can respect fundamental rights but it also helps us in other terms which I will tell you in a minute and also we want to make sure that AI helps us and not discriminate us so we see chances of AI we see that AI might help us to modernize our digital infrastructure but we also see the risks when we for example talk about discrimination fundamental rights and so on and therefore we came up with these demands and therefore in order to make sure that we can have AI that respects fundamental rights that is fair that is making sure that we don't discriminate but rather that it helps us we do believe that we need the use of free software in AI so the more free software we have in AI the more we can make sure that it respects our rights that it respects fundamental rights but there are also other good reasons beside of the protecting of rights part and this is about markets and we also do believe that we want to modernize our digital infrastructure and this is done by innovation and it helps us if we have free software when we talk about innovation because then we don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over again so with the help of free software we can build on what's already out there we can make sure that we can see and understand what others did so far and by thus we can build on top and also then share this again with others and this helps to foster innovation also we can not only share expertise but we can also share costs and collaboration projects and by thus we do believe that if we use free software not only in AI but also in AI that we can foster innovation here and we have seen in the past particularly when we for example talk about the corona tracing apps a thing which yeah was all over Europe that it helps if we have transparency if we can modify even if it for example just comes to translation or something like this that this transparency helps us not only to guarantee trust but also to make sure that there's innovation so we do believe that yeah free software helps us on the one hand to protect fundamental rights but also on the other hand to foster the market so I've already pointed to some yeah freedoms that free software guarantees you and to make sure that we are all aware of what we are talking here about here would just quickly go again through the free four freedoms of free software so whenever we talk about free software we are talking about four freedoms and it's the further freedom to use to study to share and to improve so this means we are free to use the software for any purpose without any restrictions so we can take the software and we can do whatever we want to do with the software so there are no limitations here also I already mentioned quite often the the freedom of transparency so we are free to study the code because the code is transparent and this means the software and the code can be analyzed by anyone and this helps us for example to protect fundamental rights right because if we can see what the software is doing then we can also see if it is protecting fundamental rights or if there are maybe some issues in the code which needs to be fixed in order to make sure that fundamental rights are protected and as I said it's yeah open to everyone so yeah anyone can read and study the code and by thus yeah millions of people have the potential right to to study and analyze the code and as we have seen for example with the corona tracing apps there are many who do this and who want to make sure that our fundamental rights are protected also the third freedom to share helps us a lot because there are again no limitations so you can share your software without any limitations also the price doesn't matter that doesn't mean that you can't earn money with free software so you can earn money with free software you can sell your product however yeah you are also free to give it away for free so you can have a business model for your free software but it could be also a community project which comes with no cost for sure and you will never ever pay license fees if you are using free software so because yeah the license is to you study share and improve and then we are the first freedom to improve the software so you can like also modify it so you are free to take the code of the software to build on what's already out there or to modify it to yeah make sure that it for example protects and fundamental rights and by thus also as we have the other three freedoms this also means you are contributing back to the community and by thus you don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over again and this helps for example then with innovation so we see when we have these four freedoms use study share and improve and this helps us a lot to on the one hand protect rights and on the other hand to foster innovation in the market so and now let's have a look on what's happening at the EU at the moment so do they understand that free software is good for AI and if so yeah where are we now what lies ahead of us what's the process but also what aren't the different let's say opinions in the European Union on this at the moment so I guess you might be familiar with the information that there is AI regulation on its way so the European Commission proposed a regulation in order to regulate AI in the European Union and this also called the AI Act so far the situation is that we are discussing in the European Parliament and the Council this proposal of the European Commission in the proposal of the European Commission itself we don't have any clear reference to the use of free software so they talk a lot about trust they talk a lot about of about innovation protecting fundamental rights and so on but there is no clear saying that we need the four freedoms in order to make sure to guarantee that fundamental rights are protected for example so they have just like these buzzwords in the regulation on the trust regulation and now it's on the European Parliament but also on the Council which means the member states of the European Union to modify this document and to make sure that we have a good regulation in the end so what happened so far in the European Parliament is that before the European Commission presented its proposal on the regulation of AI it started to work on a dedicated committee so the AI committee in the European Parliament to think about what is important when we talk about AI and it took them two years to make hearings to talk to experts to stakeholders and researchers so on and then they finally came up with a resolution so this is not a legal text but this is somehow a position of the European Parliament how they want to regulate AI and here we have a very strong saying on public money public code for AI so the European Parliament demands that whenever possible so that's the limitation here but whenever possible they want to see that public bodies administrations and so on that they procure or if they program it by themselves release software under a free software license so this is a very good idea a very strong saying here I think in this resolution of the European Parliament it found a huge majority back in the day so nearly all of them voted in favour just a few far right parties voted against this saying so we have a strong saying in this resolution that especially yeah public bodies administrations should go in the direction and procure or release software under a free software license also there's a reference to the open source strategy of the European Commission in this document so the Commission released some years ago a strategy it is full of loopholes you will also find detailed analysis and some interviews on this on our website fsve.org and but in the end there is at least a strategy so and they say and yeah and see the advantages of free software when it comes to public bodies and administrations so the European Commission want that the European Commission is procuring more free software and that whenever they program something by themselves release it under a free software license I said the document is full of loopholes but still better than nothing and also the European Parliament understood that this might be a good idea especially when it comes to public bodies that if you use public money it should be public code so free software in the end and also what was very important for us is that they also see that it's good for the markets so not only for public bodies but also for private sector it is important that we have free software so they say whenever we use free software then this is also good for innovation so we see the arguments I showed you in the very beginning that are important for us are more or less reflected in this resolution here of the European Parliament and hopefully this will help us in the upcoming debate to remind them about their own position and to bring in this their good thoughts also in the regulation to make sure that once we have the regulation that through delegated acts and so on we make sure that especially public bodies procure or release under a free software license but also that there are more and more private market players who understand that free software is also good for them another paper we have designed the regulation and now this resolution is the declaration on digital rights so and this declaration on digital rights also has no legal character but it is still a declaration so this important document so it will guide us through upcoming legislations so for example the European Commission will use this declaration and keep it in mind whenever they propose something new when it comes to digital or where digital rights are affected and a bit similar like with the AI regulation in the proposal of the European Commission there was not a very clear reference to free software when it comes to digital rights still there are references to the Berlin and the talent declaration these are two declarations which have been signed by the member states before in the last years and there we have some very clear sayings on the use of free software so we have it in this declaration on the digital rights as a reference to these post documents still what we want to see is also then in this declaration a clear saying on the use of free software and the advantages of free software when it comes to digital rights and here the European Parliament also follows us so we intense lobbying in the last months in order to make sure that they hear our voice and now the European Parliament sorry the European Parliament found already a majority and proposed amendments to this declaration on digital rights where they have two clear sayings at the moment to include free software a general remark but also and this is very interesting and also in particular for the regulation important they have a clear saying on the use of free software and AI so they want to ensure transparency and trust by using free software so they say trust worthy standards and whenever possible open source standards should be used when it comes to AI to ensure transparency so they see a connection between transparency and trust and that this is important for AI and this could be only achieved with free software so this is very important so we see that the European Parliament understood at some points that yeah free software plays an important role also the European Commission with the open source strategy is going in the right direction at the moment we are not 100% sure what the council thinks though council is the member states of the European Union and they are still discussing this proposal so we don't have a final position of the European Council on this so what we can expect as next step is first of all on the declaration that I think in the next month there will be the council position then and then there will be a discussion between the three institutions so European Commission European Parliament and the European Council to agree on the final text for sure they want to keep it short they want to keep it yeah in a format that it's still a declaration and that could be yeah read by everyone and that it's not like 200 pages long however I think it is important to make a reference in this declaration to free software and the European Parliament wants this and what we are trying to do at the moment is yeah to find or to support them in finding this compromise by including these proposals by the European Parliament we've seen and I think this discussion will keep us busy for the next month it won't take too long I guess but yeah it's a process you never know and as that we still don't know what the council will propose however then on the other hand we have this regulation I mentioned here the idea was to come up with a final position of the European Parliament by the end of the year in order to be available to have in a Q1 next year a final text I don't think that this will happen the amendments in the European Parliament so where MEPs and committees can amend and improve the text of the European Commission have been just tabled and there are more than 3000 amendments so I think it's 100 more than we had with the data protection reform and those of you who worked on this file or follow this data protection file back in the days know how long it took to come to a compromise there so I don't expect anything before mid next year here I think there will be a long way on discussions for us and we will see how we can make sure that free software plays a role in these debates but yeah the idea was to come up with something by the end of the year but to be honest I don't see it happening because I said you remember the data protection reform 3000 amendments so there will be long fights about compromises and therefore it's also important that we raise our voice here please help us by doing so what we did so far is to use our public money public code campaign I already mentioned it in the beginning so this campaign is running for yeah a couple of years now it's a very successful campaign it's a easy slogan if it's public money it should be public code as well so what we want this legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector should be made publicly available under every software license so and yeah this is then also true for AI and we use this campaign which was signed by more than 30 000 individuals and 200 organizations and administrations in europe to convince with our arguments but also to show that they are also already for example on the local level many initiatives going in the this direction that more and more public bodies are using and procuring for software that more and more are understanding that it's a good idea and therefore it might be also a good idea to bring this into the text of this regulation so you can easily support us by just if you haven't done so far signing the public money public code initiative but also if you are representing an organization feel free to reach out to us and we will let you here as a supporting organization and whenever you have the chance to reach out to a decision maker make them aware of this concept of this campaign it helps a lot normally decision makers if they are open to it easily understand it that it is a good argument as said that some administrations are following us like the city of Barcelona or the Swedish workers institution and so we also have support by administrations here which is very good and yeah if you want to work particular on AI feel free to reach out to me you can send me email or contact me on social networks and yeah i'm happy to work with you on the i file the more voices are in the concert and the easier it gets to convince decision makers to make sure that there is free software in AI with this i want to thank you thank you for listening maybe yeah you you want to get active here that would be awesome else yeah thanks for joining me for this talk and which are very nice ongoing conference and with this yeah thank you and enjoy the rest of the content bye