On 26 April 2018, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Peter Altmaier met with Andrus Ansip, Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to discuss artificial intelligence and the Commission's new package of measures to deepen the digital single market.

Said Minister Altmaier: “After launching more than 40 measures over the past three years, the European Commission has now taken a series of additional important measures to complete the digital single market. I welcome the fact that, in the future, online platforms will be required to provide business clients with greater transparency. For example, trading platforms, like Amazon, and search engines, like Google, are to state the main criteria used for ranking the websites shown and to formulate their terms and conditions more clearly. This will create fairer conditions and will particularly help small and medium-sized enterprises which rely on the platforms as a sales channel. It is good that the Commission wants to strengthen the EU’s position on the mega topic of artificial intelligence. Germany is known as one of the world’s leading locations for artificial intelligence research. We want to strengthen that position and to launch a special initiative to foster the transfer of research findings to business. We also need to define basic ethical standards and to play a part in shaping the digital transformation in the workplace. We need good solutions for people and companies. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy will support the Commission in a dedicated and structured manner.”

The European Commission’s new strategy on artificial intelligence sets out plans to extend funding for artificial intelligence, to develop ethical guidelines in this field and to conduct research on the effects of artificial intelligence on the labour market.