Europe's call for human-centric, trustworthy AI will create more opportunities for startups

One of the hard lessons of the US experience of allowing tech companies to become tech giants has resulted in too much centralization of power. A system of checks and balances with widely-dispersed expertise is essential to prevent abuses of power. It is therefore encouraging that the recommendations specifically call for creating "public-private partnerships to foster sectoral AI systems" and "an easy avenue for startups and SMEs to funding and advice", through InvestEU, the European Innovation Council, Digital Innovation Hubs, and other programmes. The European startup community and the universities and incubators that nourish it should become actively involved in AI-HLEG's follow-on activities to promote the implementation of these recommendations, and guarantee that evolving standards maintain public access and do not become further barriers to entry.