While the US is building the highway for the digital future, Europe tries to build its guardrails. Regulatory frameworks – such as the GPDR, AI Act and Digital Services Act – aim to limit excessive collection of personal data, ensure fairness of AI systems and protect citizens from the dominance of tech monopolies. Where the US government is paralysed by bipartisan politics and corporate lobbying, Europe is charting a different course, emphasising market regulation to guide technological development. Yet, a stark digital divide persists: the combined market capitalisation of the seven largest US tech firms is 20 times bigger than the EU’s counterparts. Is Europe’s regulatory approach hindering innovation, or could it carve out a distinctive path towards digital sovereignty?
Marietje Schaake and Haroon Sheikh, two thought leaders on democratic control over technology, will present their books and participate in a panel discussion, moderated by Jurriaan Parie, on the future of tech in Europe.
About the speakers
Marietje Schaake is international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. She writes a monthly column for the Financial Times and is author of the book The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley.
Haroon Sheikh is endowed professor of Strategic Governance of Global Technologies at VU University Amsterdam and a senior scientist at the WRR (Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy). He writes columns for NRC and is author of the book Atlas of the Digital World.
Jurriaan Parie is co-founder of NGO Algorithm Audit – a European knowledge platform for AI bias testing and AI standards. As a mathematician and AI policy watcher, he works on bridging the gap between the reasoning paradigm of policymakers and engineers.
