Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash.
As Europe moves toward greater AI sovereignty, defining what societal success means has never been more crucial. On 3 December, our webinar titled “What is success in European AI?” set out to discuss just that.
Our panelists, representing EU institutions, civil society, and the AI industry, offered insight into the complexities of implementing, deploying, and governing AI. Throughout the discussion, a tension emerged: is the European Union’s pursuit of AI “success”, often framed through economic competitiveness and global AI race, in conflict with its core values of human-centricity and sustainability? What followed was a reflection on a policy landscape that is still finding its moral compass.
This blog, written by Elizabeth Farries, Director of the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, is part of a three-part series on expert views on AI success. FORSEE researchers presented these statements during the webinar to provoke discussion about what success in AI means. You can read the other two here and here.
Towards a holistic definition of AI Success
Our collective understanding of what makes AI successful remains narrow and incomplete. Success in AI is often equated with technological sophistication or economic efficiency. How quickly can systems learn? How much productivity will they generate? How do they scale in specific contexts?
The challenge is that AI systems do not operate in isolation. They are created and embedded in societies, accompanied by a series of expectations that both influence and are influenced by the institutions, values, and social practices of specific groups. Therefore, defining AI success holistically means engaging social expectations beyond these specific groups across society more broadly. Acknowledgment shows that progress can not simply be measured by economic growth, uptake, infrastructure, or use, with gestures at social sustainability, but through mechanisms that both prioritise and embed substantive inclusivity and accountability.
EU’s fundamental values, ecological responsibility, and digital sovereignty concerns are part of this discussion. At the heart of our FORSEE research we understand that AI success conceptualisations must prioritize well-being across society. This includes centring gendered and labour perspectives, ecological and community impacts, and citizen participation. Broadening our understanding in such a way should assist crafting political prioritisation and strategic choices specific large industry narratives: defining or redefining AI success is not just a moral or philosophical task but a strategic imperative for the EU’s leadership in considering what words like sustainable or human-centred AI would include for all of us.
