Artificial Intelligence and Public Services – the Role of Public Authorities in the Service of the “Third Way” Drawn up by the European Commission

In the context of its famous “third way”, the EU Commission develops a strong strategy for the development of an AI market founded on “Excellence and Trust” keywords. The public sector is expected to play an important role for achieving this goal. Diverse legal instruments are envisaged for supporting this increasing role. First, the “Open Data Directive” is revised in order to increase the volume and the data put at the disposal of the private sector and the citizens. Reciprocally, according to what EU Commission calls ‘The reverse PSI’, the public sector would be able to receive data from the companies or directly from the citizens in order to contribute, thanks to the use of AI applications, to better public services and decisions. The Data Governance Act presently in discussion at the EU level organises these exchange between Private and public sector and fixes certain conditions for the ‘ data Altruism’. As regards the development or the use by the public sector of AI applications, we have to refer to another draft EU regulation: the AI Act. The Proposal distinguishes according a risk based approach different categories of AI applications, especailly it fixes a procedure of assessment and ethical values and principles to take into consideration throughout the entire cyclus of life of these applications.