An increasing body of literature predicts AI as a disruptive and transformative of society as we know it today. In this landscape of change the European Union has taken an initiative to push for the development of “AI that corresponds to European Ethical Values and citizens’ aspirations”. This plan is ambitious and reflects the collective consciousness that if left behind Europe might lose its standing as global political and economic powerhouse. The Approach launched by the European Commission centers around the concept of Trustworthy and Ethical AI. This research will examine how the European Union, aware of its limitations, formulates an approach towards AI distinct from others and based on the concepts and values defining what it sees as inherently European. The thesis proposes that the European approach to AI is an exercise in Normative Power and a resurrection of the concept in a new digital age.
For this purpose discourse analysis is chosen as the best research method. The research material selected include key documents published by the European Comission process that both outline its core motivations and content, how the strategy is communicated by Comission representatives and in the documents making up the final version of the European Approach to AI. Conducting a discourse analysis from a critical perspective of the selected material to answer the proposed research question is an exercise in looking at how the EU wishes to represent itself. The analysis focuses on the European Commission in aiming to construct Europe as a global leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The research will focus on a specific social problem which has a semiotic aspect namely the relationship of role of discourse in the reproduction of different forms of power.
The central findings of the research are that indeed the discursive representations necessary for a European identity founded in normative power are present in all the literature that was reviewed and analyzed. Discursive representations are employed by the European Comission. the European Commission actively takes parts in the discursive enactment of Europeanness itself, by framing AI as a challenge that the EU has a better solution to than its rivals. It also engages in acts of positive-self representations and which turn effectively in to indirect negative-othering
The Research concludes on the notion that the original concept of Normative Power coined by Ian Manners has not disappeared from European political discourse and lives on in the multitude of policies and documents produced. More research is recommended in the field of Artificial Intelligence as the recommendations and strategies provided by the European Commission are taken from theory in to practice. The European approach to AI is as much defined by what is included in the above analysed documents as what is missing, but whether Brussels prefers the term or not, its AI Strategy is fast becoming a reboot for Normative Power Europe
