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Transatlantic Consensus Manifesto "Enforcing Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence"

AI and data-driven business models are increasingly pervasive. They affect how we work, buy, sell, communicate, meet, navigate, and build relationships. Truth, knowledge, identity, and reality are impacted. AI systems affect individual rights, social relationships, the economy, and politics, and pose new threats to democratic institutions and processes, individual dignity, autonomy, and human well-being.

Faced with such challenges and risks, a Transatlantic Reflection Group on Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Age of AI has produced a Consensus Manifesto calling for effective and legitimate AI law enforcement. While acknowledging the significance and complexity of the issues at stake, the Consensus Manifesto acknowledges the critical and complementary roles of technological innovation, international standards, and legal compliance practices. The manifesto emphasizes the importance of transatlantic cooperation in protecting democratic values and human rights and developing best practices for regulating AI applications and their risks.

The Consensus Manifesto was developed through an independent collaborative process of international experts, with support of The Athens Roundtable on AI and the Rule of Law and The Future Society (TFS), which launched the initiative in 2020 with the "Consensus Manifesto in Defense of Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Age of AI." This year, the Institute of Future and Innovation Studies at John Cabot University joined the group to support the development of the second manifesto, "Enforcing Law in the Age of AI." Based on the first manifesto's values and principles, the group created the second manifesto to raise awareness about the challenges of international law compliance and provide concrete recommendations for addressing transatlantic law enforcement.

The Manifesto will be presented to the public on October 10, 2022, at John Cabot University in Rome, and further discussion with many other institutional partners will take place at the fourth Athens Roundtable on AI and the Rule of Law, which will take place in Athens on December 1-2, 2022. Both events will be attended by policymakers, industry, the legal community, and other stakeholders from both sides of the Atlantic.

Contributors to the Transatlantic Reflection Group on Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence include, in alphabetical order: Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Samuel Curtis, Julie Cohen, Katherine Evans, Dr. Bruce Hedin, Niki Iliadis, Dr. Ing. Konstantinos Karachalios, Anja Kaspersen, Francesco Lapenta, Nicolas Miailhe, Paul Nemitz, Denia Psarrou, Marc Rotenberg, Dr. Sarah Spiekermann, Thomas Streinz, Wendell Wallach, and Stefano Quintarelli. 

The event is organized by JCU's Institute of Future and Innovation Studies. There will be welcome refreshments at the Secchia Terrace at 5 p.m., followed by the symposium at 6 p.m.

If you are interested in attending, please send an email to [email protected].