 Hello, everyone, and welcome to this talk on AI and free software in the European Union. My name is Alexander Zander, I'm working for the Free Software Foundation Europe, and this is a charity that empowers users to control technology, and we do believe that this could be done with the help of free software. And in the next 15 minutes, I want to tell you why free software is so important in general, but also specifically in regard to artificial intelligence. And at the moment, we are discussing in the European Union how to find ways to put the law in place to regulate AI artificial intelligence, and by last we can also set a standard for the world. And it's very important to make sure that free software plays a role in this regulation and set in the next 15 minutes, I will tell you why and how to do this. First of all, let me introduce again the concept of free software, also known as open source. So I guess you are all familiar with this, but still to bring us on the same page and in order to make sure we know what we are talking about and why it is so important. I will introduce the four freedoms of free software. So first of all, you are free to use the software, you can study the software, you can share it and you can improve it. So when we have these four freedoms, we talk about free software, also known as open source, and this means you are free to use the software for any purpose without any restrictions and limitations, so you can simply use it. Also the code is transparent, but thus you can study the code, it can be analyzed by anyone. This is specifically important when we talk about transparency, this is a key debate around AI, but also you are free to share the software without any limitations and here also the price doesn't matter, so you can money with free software and this is also done, and you are free to improve the software. So this means it can be modified by anyone and these modifications can be also used by others, so you are giving back to the community by improving the software, so others don't have to reinvent the wheel, but can also build on what you have already done. So whenever you have these four freedoms to use, study, share and improve, we talk about free software and I think you already get the idea now why it is so important to use free software in AI, but let's have a closer look on our demands from FSFE and why we think we need free software in AI, so first of all it's about fundamental rights, so we need to make sure that AI, artificial intelligence, respects fundamental rights. There's a huge debate ongoing on how to protect fundamental rights and I think free software is key in order to make sure that we can protect fundamental rights and in this regard we want to have transparent, fair and accessible AI, but as we can see what the software is supposed to do, we can see if it's respect fundamental rights, but also we can see if it's maybe discriminating for example and in the end I think we all want to have AI in place, we want to use AI and we will use AI, but we need to make sure that it helps us and not restrict us or even worst, yeah, in the first place our fundamental rights or discriminators and therefore I said we need free software because when we have to for freedoms we can see for example what the software is supposed to do and by thus we can check if fundamental rights are protected or if the software might discriminate or if it's not fair and therefore it's really important that we come up with these demands in a debate and convince decision makers to have a look on the concept of free software and to introduce it in the lawmaking process and make sure yeah we will have it in the law in the end, but also beside of the fact that it protects fundamental rights there's another very important point and it's about innovation, yeah, and markets and if we have transparent code if we can collaborate and share risks but as expertise but also costs then this helps to foster innovation, yeah, so first of all we don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over again so we can build on what's already out there and but as yeah and you don't have to start from scratch but also it helps us to collaborate with others to get in touch with other stakeholders with other yeah and persons who are developing AI and you can exchange views but you can also exchange code and also you are free to work together with other stakeholders not only coders but also like yeah people from from universities who might have good ideas but also people who have already experienced with a specific part of AI and so on and by thus if we have free software we can make sure everyone can collaborate and by thus it helps innovation so we have on the one hand the possibility to protect fundamental rights and on the other hand to get straightforward with innovation and that's why I think it's key to use free software when it comes to AI but for sure also in general but yeah as we are talking about AI today and let's focus on this and the especially I think transparency leads to innovation and trust and also the possibility to modify and give back to the community and yeah also we want to have trustworthy AI not only in respect to fundamental rights but also that citizens know that the software or but the AI they are using is trustworthy and therefore I think we have seen it in the debates around the corona tracing apps for example that it is key that people know what they are using that they are part of the debate and that they can check if for example fundamental rights are protected and this leads to trust and by thus people will also use the solutions and this is also key I mean we don't want to have AI out there which is not going to be used and therefore trust is also very important and yeah this is a short wrap up of all the arguments while we need free software and there are also other points like open data but I think yeah free software plays an important role to make sure that we can protect fundamental rights and guarantee innovation so the question is what's going on in the legal process now so as I said in the very beginning there is currently a lawmaking process taking place in the European Union so the EU wants to regulate AI and therefore yeah they drafted an AI regulation and also known as AI act in the media sometimes and so the current state of play is that the European Commission proposed a text which is now discussed in the European Parliament and in the Council unfortunately in the proposal of the European Commission free software doesn't play a role so they don't name it they yeah it's simply not in so what we need to make sure is that European Parliament and European Council start to debate around this concept and bring it in because yeah European Commission forgot about it so and this is actually happening especially in the European Parliament just a few weeks ago the European Parliament passed a resolution on AI so this is not legally binding so this is more like an opinion of the European Parliament but this opinion now plays a key role also in the debate about the regulation so the lawmaking process and in this resolution the European Parliament set to itself if one would like to frame it like that that they want to include public money the principle of public money public code in the AI regulation though it's not fully fully in line with our PPC demands so they want they said so whenever it's possible then we should procure free software and when it comes to AI as administrations public bodies and so on if they are using AI they should use free software this is pretty much yeah what we want with our PPC campaign we want to go a bit further we want it everywhere every time but still I think this is the first step in the right direction and the European Parliament also specifically voted on this saying to procure free software when it comes to AI and this found a very huge majority in the European Parliament so only some ECR and ID MAPs voted against so this is very conservative and far right groups and all the others voted in favor of this so there was overwhelming strong majority for the principle of procuring free software when public bodies and administrations are using AI to use free software then also there was a reference to the open source strategy of the European Commission that's why it's a bit strange that the European Commission itself does not include something on free software in the AI regulation but now the European Parliament wants to introduce this reference as well so the European Commission yeah some years ago and now release the open source strategy where they said they also want to go in the direction of releasing software they are using under free software license and I think this is then also true for free software that's why such a reference is needed in the AI Act and also they acknowledge that if you use free software in terms of AI then it is good for innovation so they are mainly following our arguments so this helped a lot that we already stepped in yeah some months ago and around this debate and start to advocate around the resolution and make sure that these sayings survived and that they found a strong majority we hope this helps us now also in the debate about the regulations so we see the European Parliament understood with a huge majority that it is very good for innovation protecting fundamental rights and procurement procedures to use free software when it comes to AI so this is at the moment very helpful and also we have seen the declaration on digital rights this is also a paper which was proposed by the European Commission it's not legally binding but it will lead us as an idea for future lawmaking processes and yeah in this declaration there are references to other documents like the Berlin Declaration for example where we have sayings and that free software should play a key role but the European Parliament now amended to this text and want to make it very clear that free software is important first of all in the light of AI so the European Parliament wants to have a say in this declaration on the digital rights that free software ensures transparency and that yeah free software and in the use of algorithms and AI is important and also they are highlighting on a more general level that open standards and open source leads to trust and I think these arguments are very important and if they would find or if they will they find their way in the declaration I think this will be also key for future debates not only about AI but in general so therefore we are also working on the declaration at the moment to make sure that the proposals of the European Parliament survive there's currently discussion with the Council and the Commission and then they will yeah or they want to have before the summer break they want to have a final text let's see if it works out and yeah we are trying at the moment to make sure that these amendments survive we because first of all it will help us in the AI regulation to make sure we can convince Council and Parliament to bring in this text but also for future legislation as there is a general saying that open source and open standards help to create trust so the next steps are that the European Parliament discuss the AI Act but also the declaration same as true for the Council so both of them are discussing about the regulation they are trying to amend it and so therefore it's they're important to make sure that we bring in text after of the resolution but also the parts of the declaration I just showed you so this is happening in the next weeks and then there will be a huge debate here for the upcoming months about the whole file and the plan is to have a common position at least of the European Parliament and the Council by the end of the year and then they start the trial look and discuss between the institutions on the final text and therefore yeah it would be key if you could support us in this and reach out to decision makers with the mentioned resolution but also declaration and ask them to bring in the concept of free software in the regulation as well and also this could be done on a national level as said the Council is also debating about this at the moment we haven't seen anything from the Council in this regard so it's also important to work on the national level on this so whenever you are reaching out to decision makers in your ministries but also in the country in general make them aware of the concept of public money public code so with our campaign which is yeah in the meantime supported by more than 30,000 people and a lot of NGOs and also administrations we want that legislation requires that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under free software license this is also true for AI feel free to watch on our website public code.au to find more arguments on this and if you haven't signed it so far feel free to also sign individually or with the organization and yeah feel free to spread the word especially when it comes to AI because I think it's important that we bring in the concept of free software in the regulation with this I'm going to end this talk unfortunately I won't be there for Q&A session but feel free to send me email to further discuss this or if you have any questions and yeah thanks for having me here at this conference and I wish you a very nice ongoing conference and hopefully we see each other yeah next year in person with this I'm going to thank you