Evaluation of the German AI Strategy Part 3 www.kas.de Imprint Editor Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V. 2019, Berlin Authors Olaf Groth, Founder and Managing Partner of Cambrian Group Tobias Straube, Principal at Cambrian Group Cambrian LLC, 2381 Eunice Street, Berkeley CA 94708-1644, United States https://cambrian.ai, Twitter: @AICambrian Editorial team and contact at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V. Sebastian Weise Consultant for Global Innovation Policy Post: 10907 Berlin Office: Klingelhöferstraße 23 T +49 30 / 269 96-3516 10785 Berlin F +49 30 / 269 96-3551 [Note: This English-language version was translated from the original publication in German.] Cover image: © ABIDAL/sarah5/yongyuan (istockphoto by Getty Images) Images: © Fabio Testa (unsplash) Design and typesetting: yellow too Pasiek Horntrich GbR The print edition was produced in a carbon-neutral way at Druckerei Kern GmbH, Bexbach, and printed on FSC-certified paper. Printed in Germany. Printed with the financial support of the Federal Republic of Germany. This publication is licenced under the terms of “Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International”, CC BY-SA 4.0 (available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) legalcode.de). ISBN 978-3-95721-571-0 Evaluation of the German AI Strategy Part 3 Olaf Groth, Founder and Managing Partner of Cambrian Group Tobias Straube, Principal at Cambrian Group Table of Contents Background and Definitions 4 Cambrian AI Index © as context for Germany 5 Summary and Evaluation 6 Germany 9 I.) Introduction 9 II.) Requirements for AI 10 III.) Institutional framework 12 IV.) Research and Development 15 V.) Commercialisation 20 Methodology of the Cambrian AI Index © 26 Literature reference 35 Authors 39 Background and Definitions Artificial intelligence: The following definition is used as rapid developments and designs of the a basis for the terminology: initial conceptual AI frameworks. “In the broadest sense, artificial intelligence is the ability of machines to learn, think, plan In July 2018, the German federal government and perceive; the primary characteristics we published a key issues paper on the German identify with human cognition. This charac- strategy with regard to artificial intelligence (AI) teristic is achieved through digital technolo- and there they acknowledge: “Artificial intelli- gies, or digital-physical hybrid technologies, gence has reached a new stage of maturity in which mimic human cognitive and physical recent years and is becoming a driver of digitiza- function. For that purpose, AI systems do not tion and autonomous systems in all spheres of only process data, they recognise patterns, 1 life.” Therefore, the state, society, the economy, draw conclusions, and become more intel- the government, and science are urged to con- ligent over time. Their ability to adopt and sider artificial intelligence in depth and to deal refine newly developed skills has improved with its chances and risks. significantly since the turn of the century. This also means that what is referred to as The comprehensive German AI strategy was pre- AI changes with each major technological sented at the Digital Summit in December 2018. breakthrough, and the definition must there- In this way, Germany is catching up with a large fore be periodically adjusted.” number of countries which in recent years have seen extensive initiatives for AI strategy finding processes.2 These strategies are motivated by partly spectac- ular developments in research and application of AI systems based on machine learning tech- niques (ML) as well as the sub-discipline of deep learning (DL) and its various forms of neural net- works. The global relevance of AI technologies is also reflected in the constant presence of the topic on the international agenda. 1 Cf. German Federal Government, Key Points of the Federal Government for an Artificial Intelligence Strategy(July 2018), https://www.bmbf.de/files/180718%20 Eckpunkte_ The role of Artificial Intelligence as a potential KI-Strategie%20final%20Layout.pdf. key technology of dystopian future concepts, 2 To this end, see the OECD overviews, for example, social control, and autocratic world power fan- http://www.oecd.org/going-digital/ai/initiatives-worldwide/, tasies is also increasingly finding its way into Future of Life Institute, https://futureoflife.org/ai-policy/, the Smart Data Forum, https://smartdataforum.de/ en/ public debate. While the two previous studies services/international-networking/international-ai- presen ted a comparative overview of the AI strat- strategies/, Charlotte Stix, https://www.charlottestix.com/ egies of major economies, this part concludes ai-policy-resources, und Tim Dutton, https://medium. the series and analyses the German CI strategy com/politics-ai/an-overview-of-national-ai-strategies- 2a70ec6edfd, all last retrieved on 17.9.2018. compared to the international situation. 4 Cambrian AI Index © as context for Germany In the course of the analysis in parts 1 and 2 of the country. To integrate these indicators and deter- study “Comparison of National Strategies for the mine the AI position of a country, the Cambrian KI Promotion of Artificial Intelligence”, twelve coun- Index © has been developed. The index is limited tries (USA, China, Great Britain, France, Finland, by proxy measurements for which reliable and South Korea, Canada, Israel, Japan, United Arab comparable data are available at this early stage Emirates, Singapore and India) were evaluated on of the AI development (see chapter: Methodology the basis of indicators related to the prerequisites, of the Cambrian AI Index). There was no weighting the research and development situation as well of the data. The reference country for the index is as the commercialisation of AI in the respective the United States, the world’s leading AI nation. 1 10 0 0 0 0 00 ni srel n in nite n rne inln inore ern o eri nite ttes r irtes nite ino eli o ore enerl reireents eser n eeloent oerilistion rin ne 5 Summary and Evaluation The German Strategy for the Promotion of Arti- On the other hand, it is made clear by the warning ficial Intelligence (AI) was officially presented at words from science and industry, which also call the Digital Summit of the Federal Government in for the urgency of targeted AI funding by the fed- December 2018. The German strategy builds on eral government and the European Union if the the strength of German science, particularly in full potential of AI is to be opened in the sense of the field of fundamental research. This strength is German and European values.3 The development to be further enforced and supplemented by an of a digitally competent and mature civil society, improved transfer of scientific findings to indus- the safeguarding of the efficiency of the German try. In addition to these focal points, the German AI research landscape as well as the wide-rang- AI strategy also formulates the claim to globally ing application of new technologies takes time, integrate German added value in the AI sector as does experimenting with new models. and to shape the AI age ahead along ethical lines. Whether Germany can keep up with the inter- So far, the lack of permeability between science national competition for talent, data pools and and the private sector has prevented the scaled computing power will not be decided solely by the transition of research results into commercial financial issue of whether the 500 million Euro applications. Among other things, there is a lack per year envisaged in the strategy will suffice until of global platform companies in the digital econ- 2025. The Chinese city of Tijan alone is planning omy (exception: SAP), which could scale innova- to promote AI spending with a sum of 12.8 bil- tions worldwide through ethical business mod- lion Euro and the Chinese company Alibaba has els. A focus on industry 4.0 will not be sufficient even budgeted up to 16 billion Euro. Rather, the to achieve the power to shape and influence the decisive factor will be how open and construc- entire breadth of the field at the global level. tively critical all parts of society will be towards Beyond the economy, society as a whole will be the potentials and risks of artificial intelligence. more strongly penetrated by AI in the future and For only if the AI strategy sparks a similar social thus also the ability to bundle, clean up and ana- fire – as the Apollo Program in the 60s and 70s in lyse data, and draw conclusions from such data. the USA – and stimulates people to do research Consequently, Japan, for example, relies on the and found new ventures, can Germany continue model of a Society 5.0. to help shape the cognitive age in the future. To this end, the federal government must not only The planned measures of the German AI Strat- involve the elites from business and science in the egy are more complex than those of many other implementation of the strategy, but also take into countries. Germany’s planned financial expendi- account prospective green powers, schools and tures also exceed the investments of other Euro- representatives of civil society. A communications pean countries, such as France or Great Britain. campaign, as it is currently planned in the strat- In an international comparison, however, it must egy is expedient and necessary, but should at the be stated that Germany is rather late in terms same time be underpinned by socially meaningful of its comprehensive funding of AI. On the one showcase projects. The lighthouse projects envis- hand, this is evident in the lead that other coun- aged for this purpose in the strategy in the area of tries, such as Israel or Canada, besides the USA climate change are a good start and should also and China, have been able to gain with targeted be transferred to other areas.