Artificial Intelligence Under Influence

On April 20, Siemens’ CEO warned he would redirect industrial AI investments to the US over EU over-regulation. Six weeks later, on June 3, Brussels named Siemens’ chairman as its AI envoy.

Brussels has appointed its first “Special Envoy for Industrial Artificial Intelligence”: Danish executive Jim Hagemann Snabe.

To understand where AI development is heading within the European Commission — not across the continent broadly, but inside the institution itself — it helps to look closely at the man they chose. His profile carries the unmistakable scent of the Jutland coast and slightly off herring. This is the old world, refusing to die.