EU’s top AI adviser urges commissioners to use the technology to fix bloc’s economy

BRUSSELS — The EU should focus less on winning the race to build artificial intelligence and more on how to deploy it to turn around the bloc’s sluggish productivity, the European Commission's chief AI adviser told commissioners. The technology is Europe’s best chance to accelerate growth in a range of sectors — including health, agriculture, transport, defense and manufacturing — Jim Hagemann Snabe, the EU’s new special envoy for industrial AI, told the bloc’s 27 commissioners at a Sept. 4 seminar, according to two Commission officials. They were granted anonymity to discuss the private briefing. The EU is trying to capture the economic gains of rapidly advancing AI even as it grapples with the technology’s risks to jobs, security and society.