Why Europe has been absent from the great AI safety debate
European leaders, including ECB chief Christine Lagarde, are framing the continent's AI choices as a binary: resist the technology and accept economic decline, or adopt it and depend on tools built by the US and China. That dilemma is sharpening as a broader global debate over AI safety risks overshadows Europe's existing consumer-focused AI rules.
Why this matters: Europe built its reputation on regulating technology other places built. With AI, it is arriving late to a different kind of fight. The AI Act addresses product risk and consumer harm. It does not really engage with the bigger question of whether the most powerful AI systems are safe at all. That leaves European citizens in a strange position: protected from some harms on paper, but almost entirely dependent on foreign-built technology that their governments did not shape and cannot easily control. Being a rule-setter is not the same as having a seat at the table where the real decisions get made.
Who should care: General readers · AI governance · Policy
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