Cabinet presents vision on generative AI | News item

News item | 18-01-2024 | 11:18

The vision is in line with various ongoing multi-million investments from research institutions, the business community and governments to better connect the Netherlands to the rapid developments in the field of artificial intelligence.

“We want to preserve our values ​​and prosperity in the Netherlands,” says coordinating minister (Digitalization), Alexandra van Huffelen. “The IMF calculates that in developed economies, up to sixty percent of jobs may be affected by AI. We do not want to leave social security in the Netherlands solely to large tech companies. This therefore requires a government that has ambition and vision, based on public values ​​and our goals: everyone can participate in the digital age, everyone can trust the digital world and everyone has control over digital life. By determining what we stand for now, we will maintain control in the future.”

Minister Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs and Climate): “It is important that the Netherlands does not remain on the sidelines regarding artificial intelligence. Generative AI in particular is increasingly developing into one of the defining technologies of our time. In everyday life, but also, for example, as an application in machines and in more efficient industrial systems. Europe will have to catch up with Asia and the US. Only if we invest more in AI innovations ourselves will we have the opportunity to participate and provide direction for the correct and promising development of the technology in both our society and economy.”

Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science): “To fully utilize the opportunities that generative AI offers, we must focus on more knowledge and more skills. It is about developing and retaining AI talent, so that we can develop generative AI that complies with European standards and values. This is also of added value for Europe’s digital open strategic autonomy. We are also looking at investments in large-scale scientific and technological infrastructure, such as supercomputers and computing power, at national and EU level. In this way we want to be competitive in the field of LLMs and other forms of generative AI.”

The rise of Generative AI

AI is a system technology that has a major impact on all domains and sectors of our society, and will affect all government policy areas. Generative AI is a specific form of AI. It helps people generate text, computer code, images and audio, for example, and has already proven to be a powerful extension of people’s analytical and creative skills. Especially since the launch of chatbot ChatGPT at the end of 2022, and the introduction of other generative AI tools such as Google Bard, Midjourney and DALL-E, the use of AI has become part of the daily lives of many people in the Netherlands.

New government actions

The government is asking the Social Economic Council (SER) to map the impact of AI on labor productivity, quantity and quality of work. In addition, the government will conduct campaigns to explain to citizens how to protect data against training of generative AI models. The design of a safe and usable public national AI test facility is also being explored, public-private partnerships will start this year from AINEd Innovation Labs, responsible generative AI applications will be started in concrete government services and a National AI validation team will be established. that will assess available AI applications for, for example, non-discrimination. Finally, the government will continue to focus on legislative advice from supervisors on legal frameworks.

With the development of its own open language model, GPT-NL, last November, the starting signal was given for stimulating the development of (open) Dutch and European large language models, in line with public values. GPT-NL will receive a contribution of 13.5 million euros from the first financing round for Applied Research Facilities (FTO) from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. With the AINed program from the National Growth Fund, €204.5 million is also available for knowledge, innovation and the application of Dutch AI (systems).

Chances and opportunities

Generative AI will have a major impact on the economy, society and on both central and decentralized governments. There are opportunities regarding productivity growth and new tasks and responsibilities within organizations and in the economy as a whole. It can also contribute to the improvement of internal organizational procedures and services. Within scientific research, generative AI can contribute to devising, improving and accelerating research methods.

Risks and challenges

At the same time, there are concerns about risks. For example, that generative AI affects the way we receive information and therefore affects democracy and our rule of law. Generative AI technology also strengthens the existing dynamics in digital markets, which increases the risk of abuse of market power. Generative AI can lead to job losses in both the short and long term. In addition, there are concerns about bias and selectivity that may be embedded in the systems as a result of the training data and model parameters used. Finally, the Netherlands is currently largely dependent on language models from non-European countries, which can be detrimental to the innovative power and long-term earning capacity of the Netherlands.

Principles of vision

With the values-driven approach, the Netherlands has the opportunity to lead the way in Europe and with Europe in the world. The government has the ambition to create a strong AI ecosystem in the Netherlands and the EU in which full innovation can take place with responsible generative AI. We do this by encouraging collaboration, for example through the Dutch AI Coalition. In addition, we create the preconditions for the development and use of generative AI applications, while maintaining our digital open strategic autonomy. That is why the government focuses on four principles.

Generative AI in the Netherlands:

– Is developed and applied in a safe manner.
– Is developed and applied in an equitable manner.
– Serves human well-being and human autonomy.
– Contributes to sustainability and our prosperity

From vision to action

To ensure that we can use and develop generative AI responsibly in the Netherlands and maintain control over the impact of this technology, the government presents 6 lines of action in this vision. By working together with all stakeholders, closely monitoring rapid developments in the field of AI, developing appropriate legislation and regulations, increasing knowledge and skills (in education, among other things), by ensuring (safely) the government itself experimenting with generative AI and through strong supervision of AI, with enforcement where necessary, the Netherlands can be at the forefront of the inevitable changes in our society due to generative AI.