The Politicization of the EU AI Act

Abstract

While European politicians have heralded the EU AI Act as ‘historic’, public debate on the act has remained rather muted. To get a better sense of the potential for a comprehensive democratic debate on the place of digital infrastructure in the EU, this article explores in which respects and to what extent decision-making on the AI Act has been politicised. For this purpose, I analyse the coverage of the legislative process of the AI Act in broadsheets from four EU member states (Germany, France, Netherlands, and Ireland), specifically examining variations in the (amount of) coverage, the main actors that become visible, and the main issues that come to the fore. I find that the debate has remained rather narrow and that the main issues of contestation essentially pitted member state governments’ interests against the EP and the European Commission. The legislative process did not trigger any debate on fundamental AI-related concerns about, for instance, competition and market control or about its impact on the environment, water use, and electricity grids. Hence, while the EU may have its AI Act, it certainly has not had a comprehensive political debate on AI yet.