The Minister for Digital Transformation and the Public Service, José Luis Escrivá, arrived in A Coruña this Tuesday to sign with the mayor, the socialist Inés Rey, the agreement for the transfer of a large, white, centenary and emblematic building, built in the early 20s of the last century with a profusion of ornamentation to serve as the sumptuous maritime façade of the Galician city. In this stunning building on the outside and today in not very good condition on the inside, the RTVE delegation was located, it is called La Terraza and it will be, from now on, the headquarters of the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence (Aesia).
Aesia was presented at a press conference this Wednesday at the Government Delegation in Galicia without the presence of its new director, Ignasi Belda, who attended with Escrivá the transfer of La Terraza, but was absent from the presentation before the media due to having than traveling to Brussels. The large container of the Aesia, pronounced “Aesía”, as the minister has emphasized, will undergo a profound interior renovation during the summer. At the same time, the agency will begin the selection of personnel, a staff that has not yet been specified, but that “will grow a lot” depending on the needs, with officials, labor personnel and recent graduates “with specific contracts.” The minister has ventured, for the moment, a starting figure: “We will reach 70 or 80 officials within two and a half years.” He has also detailed that highly specialized professionals in AI will be sought, but that it will be a “multidisciplinary” team due to the very essence of the subject, which “combines technology and humanism.” Escrivá has insisted several times that talent will be sought among the “new blood”, young people just out of university, and that Aesia will serve to develop “new modalities of access to public service.”
The minister explained the new public body that is being launched in A Coruña, anticipating the European obligation to have an AI control institution, seeking to be “the voice” of Spain on an international scale for the development of a “responsible” technology. ”. Ignasi Belda, the general director, plans to occupy with his team, in a few weeks, a part of the old RTVE building that is preserved in good condition and begin to provide resources and personnel to the newborn entity. Escrivá advances that Aesia will grow “a lot” and will have intense activity already this year, but above all “in 2025 and 2026,” because it will be the time when the regulatory “architecture” of AI in Europe will be put together.
Cabalar (EFE)
Escrivá has stressed that “the role of Aesia is central” in the Artificial Intelligence Strategy approved by the Council of Ministers, so that it is “transparent, responsible and humanistic.” Among its functions will be “anticipating trends to analyze risks and where we set the limits.” And that requires, he recalled, “a broad consensus in society, involving many bodies,” he stressed. “I, who am an official of the Bank of Spain, envision that Aesia will be present in our lives as much as the Bank,” he also predicted. To this end, we are already working in coordination with other national and regional organizations that have to do with the development of AI and, according to Escrivá, “continuous links will be established with civil society and the public sphere.”
In the “coming weeks,” according to the Ministry, “the hiring of highly specialized professionals in AI will begin to cover the General Secretariat and the Division Headquarters of Aesia.” In turn, Belda will begin to “establish relationships with relevant AI organizations in our country, in addition to participating in international AI forums,” such as the AI Council in Brussels that is being held this Wednesday.
Another task of the organization will be the classification of models according to their risks. “Aesia is a market surveillance authority, supervising all authorities that may have to do with the market in Spain and promoting standards and good practices,” he summarized. In addition, work will be done to incorporate co-official languages in the AI, now insignificant, and to significantly increase the weight of Spanish.
The minister has defended the need for Spain to be present from now on in the global “debate” to “define the best practices” of a global phenomenon such as AI: “It is necessary to have its own voice in international forums to avoid regulatory fragmentation that creates problems.”
Five groups of functions
The new organization based in Galicia, as explained in the event in which the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence and President of Aesia, Mayte Ledo, also participated, has five main missions. The first is to act as “think & do tank”, anticipating trends, disseminating knowledge and energizing the social debate about the possibilities and limits of AI. The second is the development of the functions assigned to it by the European AI regulation, supervising high-risk systems, coordinating supervision with market surveillance authorities, promoting standards and good practices and evaluating artificial intelligence models.
The third is coordination in the application of the Regulation with the European AI Office and the rest of the national supervisory authorities of the EU to guarantee its uniform application and its adaptation to technological and market changes. The fourth mission, the Ministry specifies in a statement, will be to promote innovation in AI in both the public and private sectors, and facilitate compliance with regulations and the development of best practices. To this end, one of the tasks will be to develop sectoral test environments, called sandboxes.
The fifth function will be, as the minister said in the presentation, to participate in the global debate on AI, intervening in the different multinational forums in which minimum planetary standards are established to avoid regulatory fragmentation and seek a “reliable, responsible and humanist”.
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