Our Head of Digital participated last week at the RAN C&N Working Group meeting on ‘AI: understanding & opportunities for P/CVE’, organized in Prague, Czech Republic.
Among other matters, around 20 experts and first line practitioners who have experience with integrating AI in both online and offline preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) work, discussed the challenges they face nowadays and brainstormed on how AI could actually help out to address those.
Thus, the main objective of this meeting was to obtain a deeper understanding of how AI could be used in a positive way within the realm of P/CVE and identifying practical opportunities to do so. To accomplish this goal, the meeting aims were:
- Understanding the potential benefits of using AI over traditional methods and technologies for P/CVE practitioners. As well as how online AI-based P/CVE interventions can complement more traditional interventions or those that do not integrate AI.
- Identifying ways to make use of AI to help tackle challenges in P/CVE work.
- Identifying challenges and solutions that need to be addressed when implementing the usage of AI in P/CVE work.
- Identifying how the Artificial Intelligence Act may impact the potential usage of AI in P/CVE within the EU.
One of the biggest concerns shared was the raise of right-wing extremist narratives, especially in the context of the recent or upcoming elections. The insights were extremely useful in preparation of the European Digital Youth Summit - EDYS24, which will take place on the 19th of July 2024, in Bucharest. The main topic of both the discussion panel and workshops will be youth participation, taking into account three dimensions: digital, social and green.
This meeting encouraged participants to engage in discussions and work together in tackling the issue at hand. In order to facilitate these discussions and interactions, it was important to set the scene in a way that brings all participants on the same level of understanding.
- On day 1, participants introduced themselves in quick pitch-style slide carrousel. Next, a panel set the scene in terms of understanding current AI developments and already give some inspiration for potential usage of AI in P/CVE. The first day concluded with a ‘workshop’ session, where participants experimented with different AI tools in smaller groups and test their possibilities for application in P/CVE work.
- On day 2, participants were encouraged to ‘dream big’: what would be a task division between P/CVE practitioners and their AI tools in the (near) future? On the other hand, it was also important to discuss ethical and legal boundaries of using AI, so a separate session was dedicated to this. The last session of the day focused on gathering tangible recommendations: for practitioners on starting to use AI in their work, and for the tech sector on what developments in AI would help practitioners.