European Group Hoping to Develop AI Export Compliance Tool for Researchers
A group representing European academia and researchers is studying whether AI models can help researchers more easily determine whether their work is subject to EU export controls.
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Johan Evers, co-chair of the European Export Control Association for Research Organisations, said the group is trying to encode Annex 1 of the EU’s dual-use export control regulations -- which lists the items subject to export restrictions -- into an AI reading tool. The association hopes this will eventually allow the tool to accurately answer questions from researchers about whether their technology is subject to a license requirement, instead of forcing researchers to constantly turn to the “individual poor compliance officer who is squeezed between all these researchers who ask the questions,” Evers said.
The tool would ideally be able to use a researcher’s own description of their work and “actually link it to terminology in the dual-use list,” Evers said during the EU’s Export Control Forum in Brussels last week. Because the Annex 1 list “is the same for everyone,” the tool could be used widely, Evers added.
He stressed that the group is studying the tool with “verification by people who know how the list works” to try to ensure that the AI is accurate.
“We believe that this will actually help the scarce sources within research organizations to do their job and to focus much more on the risky entities and the risky collaborations, rather than having to struggle with vacuum pumps and other types of items on the dual-use list,” Evers said. “So this is something we definitely see further in the coming months and years to develop.”