On 8 March, the Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe (CLAIRE) All Questions Answered (AQuA) series continued, with a one hour session focussing on ChatGPT and large language models. The session was conducted in conjunction with ICT-48 Networks of Excellence TAILOR, AI4Media and ICT-48 Coordination and Support Action VISION. The panel first gave an overview of large language models (LLMs) and how they work. They then went on to consider topics including: regulation, safeguards, whether European companies are investing enough in large language models, the limitations of LLMs, and how concerned we should be about the misinformation they generate. CLAIRE All Questions Answered Events (AQuAs) are relaxed, one hour, online events that bring together a small group of panellists to discuss current hot topics in AI and beyond and answer questions from the community.

Last week, CLAIRE and euRobotics jointly hosted an All Questions Answered (AQuA) event. This one hour session focussed on humanoid robotics, and participants could ask questions regarding the current and future state of AI, robotics and human augmentation in Europe.

There is an interesting move underway to establish a pan-European AI research federation - a sort of decentralised CERN for AI. From their website: "CLAIRE is an initiative by the European AI community that seeks to strengthen European excellence in AI research and innovation. To achieve this, CLAIRE proposes the establishment of a pan-European Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe that achieves "brand recognition" similar to CERN." "The CLAIRE initiative aims to establish a pan-European network of Centres of Excellence in AI, strategically located throughout Europe, and a new, central facility with state-of-the-art, "Google-scale", CERN-like infrastructure – the CLAIRE Hub – that will promote new and existing talent and provide a focal point for exchange and interaction of researchers at all stages of their careers, across all areas of AI. The CLAIRE Hub will not be an elitist AI institute with permanent scientific staff, but an environment where Europe's brightest minds in AI meet and work for limited periods of time. This will increase the flow of knowledge among European researchers and back to their home institutions."

CLAIRE, the Confederation of Laboratories for AI Research in Europe, launched its COVID-19 Initiative in March 2020 as the first wave of the pandemic hit the continent. Its objective was to coordinate volunteer efforts from its members to contribute to tackling the effects of the disease. The taskforce was able to quickly gather a group of about 150 researchers, scientists and experts in AI organized into seven topic groups: epidemiological data analysis, mobility data analysis, bioinformatics, medical imaging, social dynamics monitoring, robotics, and scheduling and resource management. We brought you a comprehensive article about the activities of this initiative in one of last month's AI for Good series posts. You can read more about the outcomes and experience of this bottom-up approach in the article: The CLAIRE COVID-19 Initiative: a bottom-up effort from the European AI community.

Holger Hoos and Nuria Oliver receive the Innovation Award, on behalf of CLAIRE and ELLIS, in Berlin on 30 September. The Confederation of Laboratories for AI Research in Europe (CLAIRE), and the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) have been awarded the 2021 German AI Prize Innovation Award. The German AI Prize ("Deutscher KI-Preis"), awarded by WELT, a German daily newspaper, is the one the largest awards of its kind in Europe and is made up of three categories: the "Innovationspreis" (Innovation Award), the "Anwenderpreis" (User Award) and the "KI-Start-up-Preis" (AI Start-Up Prize). On awarding the 100,000 euro prize to CLAIRE and ELLIS, the jury noted that both networks were supported by outstanding scientists, and are expanding the European position in research based on human-centred values. Professor Holger Hoos (Leiden University), one of the co-founders and chair of the board of directors of CLAIRE said: "We are delighted to see our vision and work for European excellence in AI recognised so prominently, and to share this important award with our colleagues in ELLIS, many of whom are also affiliated with CLAIRE".