Europe’s Digital Agenda: Is the AI Act the Final Act? In Search of Common Principles

Over the past five years the European Union legislature has passed a flurry of ambitious directives and regulations dealing with various aspects of Europe’s digital economy: the Digital Single Market (DSM) Directive (2019), the Open Data Directive (2019), the Data Governance Act (2022), the Digital Services Act (2022), the Digital Market Act (2022), and the Data Act (2023). The Artificial Intelligence Act is soon to follow.

While these legal instruments touch upon different legal domains, ranging from intellectual property law, freedom of government information and data protection to media regulation, competition law, and consumer protection, there is considerable overlap – and increasing confusion about their reach and scope, the new governance structures they establish, and their underlying policies.

The forthcoming AI Act is exemplary. If adopted, it will introduce a ban on high-risk AI technologies, establish far reaching transparency measures, demand human oversight, prohibit misleading uses of AI, create new supervisory authorities, and enhance protection of human creators against being “trained” by LLM’s.

This international conference – the first of its kind – searches for common principles and doctrines in Europe’s Digital Agenda, and queries what will be the EU’s next step – if any – in its regulatory adventure in the digital field. It will also compare Europe’s Digital Agenda to developments in the United States and look at the impact of the new European rules on enterprises in the ICT sector in Europe, particularly start-ups.

Programme

9.00-9.15       Opening (Dean)

9.15-9.45       Introduction: Martin Husovec, LSE Law School

Session 1       Fostering the European Data Economy

9.45-10.05      Heather Broomfield, University of Oslo

10.05-10.25    Lucie Antoine, LMU University, Munich

10.25-10.40    COFFEE BREAK

10.40-11.00    Bernt Hugenholtz, University of Amsterdam

11.00-12.00    Panel discussion and Q&A

12.00-13.00    LUNCH BREAK

Session 2        Platform regulation

13.00-13.20    Torger Kjelland, University of Bergen 

13.20-13.40    Benjamin Raue, University of Trier

13.40-14.00    Lucia Bonova, Head of Unit, COMP J.1

14.00-15.00    Panel discussion and Q&A

15.00-15.15    COFFEE BREAK

Session 3        Regulating AI

15.15-15.35    Alexander Peukert, Goethe University Frankfurt

15.35- 15.55   Thomas Vinje, University of Bergen

15.55-16.25    Pamela Samuelson, UC Berkeley

16.25-17.30    Panel discussion and Q&A

17.30              Closing