"Europe has the right democratic foundations, the technical capabilities and the will to deliver."

What is AI actually doing to society? It’s a question central to Neil Lawrence’s approach. Author of The Atomic Human and co-founder of Trent.AI, he brings rare range to the jury. We asked him what Europe is capable of, and what it will take to prove it.

Neil Lawrence is the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge where he is also the academic lead of ai@cam, the University’s flagship mission on AI. He is visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and author of the book The Atomic Human and co-founder and Chief Scientist at Trent.AI.

Why must this initiative exist - now?

Because this technology is a radical change in society’s information infrastructure. That means every way in which every business and public sector organisation is already anachronistic. But what will that new infrastructure look like? It will be invented here.

Beyond money: what's the real 'operating space' teams get here?

It is community and contacts. Alongside the capital available Europe has a massive human capital advantage over both USA and China. This initiative will leverage that human capital and deploy alongside the financial capital.

"Unimaginable today, but obvious in retrospect."

What would a real breakthrough look like?

Unimaginable today, but obvious in retrospect. That is the nature of this technology. But that won’t be achieved by wild claims of unimaginable outcomes. It will be achieved by the right team, with the right backing and the right contacts.

What responsibility comes with building foundation models?

These are often referred to as dual purpose technologies, but that is inaccurate, the truth is they are general purpose technologies. Which is much more complex than dual purpose. That means downstream effects can be both vivid and nuanced. Legal regimes will inevitably be behind, so there is a gap between the legal and the moral and leads to tremendous responsibility. There are no simple answers to how to react in the face of that responsibility, other than humility. My preference is to see solutions that target the beneficial outcomes but are not blind to the wider problems.

What's the biggest challenge for Frontier AI in Europe right now?

Confidence of the European community. We’ve been “talked out” of relevance from those heavily focussed on simplistic ideas like an “AI race”, and yet we know that Europe has the right democratic foundations, the technical capabilities and the will to deliver.

Who should apply - and who shouldn’t?

Applicants should have a vision that offers something different from what we have today.

Contact person

Allison Duettmann

President & CEO, Foresight Institute