As budget rapporteur, (DP), has drawn up a document examining the major balances of the budget texts to be voted on 19 December 2024. She has included a special chapter in her report on artificial intelligence. Here she talks to Paperjam about the key points she will be presenting to MPs on Tuesday 17 December.

The budget rapporteur readily admits that before she started interviewing all the stakeholders - she  conducted over 90 interviews in completely different fields ranging from politics to research - the subject intimidated her. She was inspired to tackle it after attending a conference on AI in healthcare in Germany last April. Now she's "looking forward to seeing what tomorrow will bring". And how Luxembourg will be able to benefit from this ongoing revolution.

Niche strategies

"As Luxembourg, we have always been able to prosper in niches by focusing on quality rather than quantity. From that point of view, artificial intelligence could be an opportunity for the country. There are things happening in Luxembourg. We have specialists in research, in the economy, in defence, in satellites, in startups, in health... Knowledge from all over the world is coming together here. It's really amazing what's going on," Cahen said.

Among the niches that could benefit from the development of artificial intelligence, she cited the financial sector as a priority. It has to be a priority. "Banks in 15 years' time will no longer be the banks of today. We need to evolve and stay at the cutting edge. After all, this sector brings in €5bn in tax revenue. She also cited the health sector. "I've met companies capable of producing digital twins on which we can conduct medical tests. Painlessly." Cahen was also impressed by companies developing early treatments for dementia. "We could open up the nomenclature of procedures covered by the CNS [national health fund] to attract these players and their research activities here."

"The development of personalised medicine is something close to my heart. Personalised medicine is a real opportunity, it's a niche. Prevention is going to become more important than cure. We need to take action to ensure that these hyper-personalised treatments are accessible to everyone", Cahen stated in the interview.

Satellite observation of the earth to prevent natural disasters can also benefit from advances in AI. "Investing in this sector to develop excellence in this sector would make sense." As would investing in defence. A topical issue.

Humans as the final frontier

To ensure that Luxembourg benefits from this revolution, Cahen has made 103 recommendations to the government in . It’s 103 recommendations based on three priorities.

The first of these priorities is that "if artificial intelligence has no borders, it must have limits". "AI must be fed by humans, and it is the human who must ultimately check whether the information is accurate. The ethics committee wrote in an opinion that if we call it artificial intelligence, there is no real intelligence in the human sense of the term. Artificial intelligence is only as good as the data it can have or process. If we don't pay attention to the quality of the data, it will soon be impossible to distinguish the true from the false. So we need to give ourselves a framework that respects our ethics and moral values. This is very important, and with the AI Act that the EU is preparing, Europe will certainly be the first mover on this issue". For Cahen, Europe's approach, which focuses on the risks and not on the technology, is the right one.

She also recommended that any content generated by artificial intelligence should be identified as such, and that in the name of respect for copyright, any borrowing should be clearly indicated. "Otherwise, we won't be able to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake. And, ultimately, confidence in the institutions could be shaken. A real risk for democracy, in her view. “The government needs to take this step as quickly as possible.” She also suggests that the government should surround itself with an institute or a national ethics council "so that, in all areas, the ethical aspect of the question of artificial intelligence is always taken into account."

As a corollary, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, Cahen believes that the job of journalist will regain the importance it lost with social networks, "places where anyone can improvise themselves as a journalist". "With AI, it is once again important to verify information. We need to be able to rely on trusted media that will do the checking."

Data sovereignty

The second priority for Europe is to establish its sovereignty over its data. It is “a real challenge," she said. “The data needed for AI to develop and function properly must be stored here. If we can give access to the data, we must not give away the data! That's why it's important for us to have data centres in Europe. And we also need our own clouds.” She cited as an example the Clarence project, which is the result of cooperation between that ICT providers  Luxconnect and Proximus and is based on sovereign technology - "technology that belongs to us".

With this in mind, PM 's that Luxembourg had been selected by the European Commission to host one of the seven European AI Factories on its territory is "very good news for our businesses and researchers, who will be able to take advantage of this to develop new applications".

The third priority is to ensure that Luxembourg's internet traffic is generated in Luxembourg by Luxembourg "so that if ever there was a breakdown somewhere, it would not be reflected in the grand duchy".

In addition to these three technological priorities, there is a fourth, cross-cutting priority: talent. "It's clear from all the interviews I've conducted that without data scientists, we won't be able to achieve anything. Today, we can either look for this talent elsewhere or train it locally. Ongoing training is essential, which is why significant funding has been allocated for 2025 in this area."

Read the original French-language version of this interview /