U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology Laurie E. Locascio and Director-General of DG Connect Roberto Viola have initiated a technical dialogue between the European AI Office (EUAIO) and the U.S. AI Safety Institute (USAISI) at the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. This meeting was part of the sixth ministerial meeting of the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council (TTC6), aiming to enhance bilateral collaboration on AI and foster scientific information exchange between the EU and the USA.
The technical dialogue, led by USAISI Director Elizabeth Kelly and EUAIO Director Lucilla Sioli, focused on best practices, key risks, and core questions related to AI. Key topics included watermarking and content authentication of synthetic content, government compute infrastructure, and AI for societal good, with an emphasis on weather modelling to enable simulations, forecasts, and environmental disaster anticipation. The discussions on watermarking featured participation from academics and civil society representatives.
Experts from the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of State joined the government discussions, along with representatives from the European AI Office, the Emerging and Enabling Technologies department of DG Connect, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
Both the EUAIO and USAISI expressed a shared interest in exploring best practices and tools for watermarking and content provenance, promoting these tools, and furthering scientific and technical exchange on AI safety and trust to address risks from synthetic content. They reiterated their ambition to develop an international network among key partners to accelerate advancements in AI safety science, as articulated at the AI Seoul Summit.
Laurie E. Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), emphasized the importance of this dialogue in promoting safe and trustworthy AI internationally.
