Foundations for the Future: Institution building for the purpose of Artificial Intelligence governance

TL;DR

This paper proposes a detailed blueprint for establishing effective AI governance institutions, analyzing their purpose, geographic scope, and capacity, with a focus on European institutional models and future research directions.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive framework for designing AI governance institutions, exploring key components and practical European institutional configurations.

Findings

Institutional purpose influences governance scope

Geographic scope affects participation and jurisdiction

Institutional capacity is crucial for effective governance

Abstract

Governance efforts for artificial intelligence (AI) are taking on increasingly more concrete forms, drawing on a variety of approaches and instruments from hard regulation to standardisation efforts, aimed at mitigating challenges from high-risk AI systems. To implement these and other efforts, new institutions will need to be established on a national and international level. This paper sketches a blueprint of such institutions, and conducts in-depth investigations of three key components of any future AI governance institutions, exploring benefits and associated drawbacks: (1) purpose, relating to the institution's overall goals and scope of work or mandate; (2) geography, relating to questions of participation and the reach of jurisdiction; and (3) capacity, the infrastructural and human make-up of the institution. Subsequently, the paper highlights noteworthy aspects of various institutional roles specifically around questions of institutional purpose, and frames what these could look like in practice, by placing these debates in a European context and proposing different iterations of a European AI Agency. Finally, conclusions and future research directions are proposed.