Despite its commitment to ‘trustworthy’ artificial intelligence, [...] journalists and NGOs have shown that imperfect and ethically questionable AI systems such as facial recognition, fraud detection and smart (a.k.a surveillance) cities, are also in use across Europe...

[T]he Commission is investing in the development of AI systems through funding programs...

According to last week’s leaked white paper on AI regulation, there are plans to increase this funding...

Amid this proliferation, some EU residents might be comforted by the Commission’s stated commitment to ‘Trustworthy AI,’ most notably through its Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI and the potential influence they might have on the fabled ‘AI Regulation’ promised to come in the first 100 days of the new Commission mandate...

Despite the EU’s commitment to ‘trustworthy’ AI sounding noble, the history of technological investments made under Horizon 2020 casts doubt on these intentions...

[T]he EU spent €4.5 million on a project that ‘detects’ whether a visitor to the continent is lying or not by asking them 13 questions in front of a webcam...

[T]he SEWA project [...] received €3.6 million to develop technology that can read the depths of human sentiment and emotions ‘in the wild’ — for the ultimate purpose of more effectively marketing products to consumers using an ad recommendation engine...

Going forward, the EU must stand behind their commitment to ‘trustworthy’ AI...