Major UCD-led EU project to investigate societal benefits and risks of AI
13 January 2025
FORSEE UCD Research Group: Dr Arjumand Younus, Prof Aphra Kerr, Dr Elizabeth Farries, Dr James Steinhoff, Dr Alexandros Minotakis, Prof Eugenia Siapera and Dr Pat Brodie
A new €3 million EU research project led by the (opens in a new window)UCD Centre for Digital Policy will explore the societal benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in order to enhance AI capabilities and EU regulatory frameworks.
The FORSEE (Forging Successful AI Applications for European Economy and Society) project aims to broaden the concept of AI “success” beyond technological and economic efficiency.
The research group will also seek to provide insights to help anticipate and manage the long-term opportunities and challenges associated with AI.
The project is led by (opens in a new window)Dr Elizabeth Farries, Director of the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, and funded through the “Beyond the horizon: A human-friendly deployment of artificial intelligence and related technologies” funding call under the Horizon Europe programme.
“FORSEE seeks to improve our understanding of what ‘successful AI’ actually means in order to enhance regulatory perspectives and approaches,” said Dr Farries.
“Focusing on sustainability, labour and economic efficiency, gender and engagement with civil society, our research group will offer broadened awareness of the risks and opportunities of AI, based on our grounded research.”
“The risks primarily surrounding AI are the concentration of its computing infrastructures in the interests of monopolistic tech companies, who are responsible for the hyperscale data centres in which AI systems like Chat GPT are trained and run,” added (opens in a new window)Dr Pat Brodie, a FORSEE member from the UCD School of Information and Communication Studies.
“These data centres utilise immense amounts of electricity and water at a time of amplifying climate and biodiversity crisis. Any robust assessment of AI’s risks and benefits will need to contend with the incompatibility between the concentrated control of computing infrastructure towards profit-driven growth for these companies and the imperatives of environmental justice. FORSEE will introduce new forms of assessing such sustainability aims against the unique situation and applications of AI in the EU context.”
Engaging with institutions, civil society organisations and the broader public, the FORSEE team will highlight potential tensions between existing AI applications and EU priorities, and evaluate impacts on economy and society.
The project will also examine the conditions that underpin or restrain success for small and medium enterprises within the EU, in order to equip stakeholders and policymakers with the tools to address future risks and opportunities.
The consortium brings together a broad range of partners encompassing interdisciplinary expertise across legal and policy analysis, political economy, computational social science, information and communication, media and platforms studies, collaborating with academics from computer science.
In addition to Dr Farries and Dr Brodie, participating UCD researchers include (opens in a new window)Prof Aphra Kerr, (opens in a new window)Dr Arjumand Younus, (opens in a new window)Dr James Steinhoff, (opens in a new window)Prof Eugenia Siapera and (opens in a new window)Dr Alexandros Minotakis.
Alongside UCD, the consortium partners include Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Tilburg University (The Netherlands), University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III (France), the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre (Germany), Demos Helsinki (Finland), TASC Europe Studies CLG (Ireland) and the European Digital SME Alliance (Belgium).
By: Rebecca Hastings, Digital Journalist, UCD University Relations
To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie
