digitalization
Coalition wants to make AI applications in administration possible
“We also want to make the possibilities of artificial intelligence usable for the public sector,” says a paper by the federal government. photo
© Bernd Weissbrod/dpa
A year after the digital strategy, the traffic light coalition follows suit. A data strategy has now been decided at Schloss Meseberg. With it, the cabinet also ventures into the new technical territory of AI.
The Federal Government does not rule out the development of its own AI language models, which are referred to in technical jargon as Large Language Models (LLM). “We are examining whether and to what extent LLMs should be used in the public sector in a sensible manner while respecting data protection.”
Data security is a key issue
The paper envisages that the Advice Center for Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration (BeKI), the Algorithm Assessment Center for Authorities and Organizations with Security Tasks (ABOS) and the Federal Data Protection Commissioner be involved. Together with the data laboratories of the federal ministries, the institutions should ensure compliance with data security and data protection and follow the guidelines of digital sovereignty in order to make the potential of AI usable for the public sector.
What is also new in the data strategy of the federal government is that a time frame for the implementation of the plans has been formulated in the paper for the first time. The timeline extends to the end of 2024. This is linked to the expectation that hardly any new laws will be passed in the 2025 federal election year. For more complex projects such as the Research Data Act, the legal right to Open Data and the Federal Transparency Act, the traffic light coalition wants to give itself time until the end of 2024 to actually implement the plans.
Wissing: “Data far too often unused”
Federal Transport and Digital Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) said that Germany is sitting on a huge treasure trove of data that one now wants to raise. “So far, data has remained unused far too often and is therefore missing for digital innovations. This applies to industrial as well as public data. We want and must change that.”
This requires a new, courageous data culture that makes it possible to share data in order to develop new, data-based offers from the economy and from the middle of society. “Civil society, business, science and the public sector will benefit equally from intelligent use of data. The new data strategy is an important step in this direction and implements a lever project of the digital strategy,” said Wissing.
Associations demand more speed
The KI Bundesverband explained that the data strategy should be rated positively in principle. “However, there is also the problem here that many measures are again formulated very openly.” It is important that access to data for companies and especially start-ups is made easier. “The establishment of a central marketplace could provide a significant remedy here,” said association manager Daniel Abbou. “The truth will be found in the federal budget and so far we have not seen the goals formulated in the strategy reflected.
A broad alliance of digital associations and researchers had previously called on the federal government to “resolutely advance digitization in Germany”. It finally needs “clear responsibilities” in digital policy, the expansion of a “dedicated infrastructure for the development of key technologies” and “the implementation of the goals agreed in the coalition agreement”, such as the digital budget, according to the joint letter from the KI Bundesverband, the federal association SME economy BVMW, the Federal Association of IT SMEs, the Federal Association of the Digital Economy, the eco Association of the Internet Industry and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.