Dear President von der Leyen,

We, experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and its societal impacts, are deeply concerned about your unscientific and inaccurate statement that AI is nearing human reasoning. You claimed in your budget speech in May “we thought AI would only approach human reasoning around 2050. Now we expect this to happen already next year.” 

We understand from Commission disclosure, which followed a lengthy process to obtain this information, that you relied on the statements of Dario Amodei, Jensen Huang and Sam Altman as the basis for your statement about AI nearing human reasoning. These are marketing statements driven by profit-motive and ideology rather than empirical evidence and formal proof. In short, these tech CEOs claims concerning “superintelligence” and “AGI” are manifestly bound with their financial imperatives and not rigorous science.

For the President of the European Commission to repeat the misleading marketing language of US technology firms without independent scientific verification undermines Europe’s credibility as a reliable and trusted source of scientific knowledge. This is particularly so amidst a significant speculative bubble to which baseless AI hype is contributing.

It also undermines the ability of Commission staff to evaluate the claims of AI vendors at a time when the Commission regulates them and procures AI services.

The Commission has the duty to diligently assess claims made by industry and to determine with impartial and scholarly analysis where best the objectives of the Union should be pursued. The scientific development of any potentially useful AI is not served by amplifying the unscientific marketing claims of US tech firms.

We call on you to:

retract your statement on AI approaching human reasoning next year;
diligently evaluate other such marketing claims about AI products; and
ensure you have the benefit of the necessary impartial scientific advice in future. 

Signatories: 

1. Dr. Kris Shrishak, Senior Fellow, ICCL – Enforce, Ireland
2. Dr. Olivia Guest, Assistant Professor of Computational Cognitive Science, Radboud University, The Netherlands
3. Dr. Abeba Birhane, Assistant Professor of AI, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
4. Prof. Iris van Rooij, Professor of Computational Cognitive Science, Radboud University, The Netherlands
​​​​​​​5. Prof. Dr. Dagmar Monett, Director of Computer Science Dept., Professor of Computer Science (AI, Software Engineering), Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany
6. Dr. Alex Hanna, Director of Research, DAIR, US
7. Prof. Luc Rocher, Associate Professor, Oxford Internet Institute, University of oxford, United Kingdom
8. Roel Dobbe, Assistant Professor of Public Interest AI and Algorithmic Systems, TU Delft, Netherlands
9. Dr. Marcela Suarez Estrada, Lecturer in Critical Intersectional Perspectives on AI, Radboud University, Netherlands
10. Dr. Harun Šiljak, Assistant Professor in Embedded Systems, Control, and Optimisation, School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
11. Dr. Mark Blokpoel, Assistant Professor of Computational Cognitive Science, Radboud University, The Netherlands
12. dr. Jelle van Dijk, Associate Professor Human Centred Design, University of Twente, Netherlands
13. Prof. Dr. Virginia Dignum, Professor of Computer Science and Director AI Policy Lab, Umeå University, Sweden
14. Prof. Shannon Vallor, Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
15. Dr. Dan McQuillan, Senior Lecturer in Critical AI, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
16. Dr. Bhaskar Mitra, Independent Researcher, Canada
17. Dr. Ronald de Haan, Assistant professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
18. Dr. Juliette Alenda, Assistant Professor of Sustainability, Radboud University, The Netherlands
19. Dr. Zeerak Talat, Chancellor’s Fellow in Responsible Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
20. Dr. Olivier Driessens, Associate Professor in Media and Communication, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
21. Dr. Jeremy Auerbach, Assistant Professor, University College Dublin, Ireland
22. Dr. Madeleine Castro, Senior Lecturer in Social and Interdisciplinary Psychology, Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
23. Prof. Dr. Francesco Battaglia, Professor of Neuroscience, Radboud University, Netherlands
24. Joost Vossers, PhD Candidate on Artificial Intelligence, Radboud University, The Netherlands
25. Prof. Norah Campbell, Associate Professor of Business, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
26. Dr Younes Saramifar, Profssor of History and Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
27. Prof. Maria Chiara Pievatolo, Professor of Political Philosophy; Free Software Foundation board and voting member, University of Pisa  and Free Software Foundation, Italy
28. Dr. Daniela Tafani, Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy, University of Pisa, Italy
29. Prof. Maurizio Tirassa, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy
30. Prof. Lucy Avraamidou, Professor of Science Education, Centre for Learning and Teaching, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
31. Sonia de Jager, Postdoc Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Erasmus University, Netherlands
32. Dr Esther Mondragón, Senior Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence, City St George’s, University of London, United Kingdom
33. Prof Eduardo Alonso, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, City St George’s, University of London, United Kingdom
34. Professor Teresa Heffernan, Professor on English Language and Literature, Saint Mary’s University, Canada
35. Dr. Katherine Twomey, Lecturer in Language and Communicative Development, University of Manchester, UK
36. Lelia Erscoi, Doctoral Student, School of Computing, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
37. Prof. dr. ir. Djoerd Hiemstra, Professor, Radboud University, The Netherlands
38. Dr. Andrea E. Martin, Research Group Leader, Language and Computation in Neural Systems, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics & Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, The Netherlands
39. Dr. Annelies Kleinherenbrink, Assistant Professor of Gender and Diversity in AI, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
40. Prof. Marcello Seri, Associate Professor of Differential Geometry, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
41. Fleur Zeldenrust, PhD, Associate Professor of Computational Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud Univeristy, the Netherlands
42. Dr Elizabeth Farries, Director, UCD Centre for Digital Policy, UCD, Ireland
43. Dr. Stefan Frank, Associate Professor of Computational Psycholinguistics, Radboud University, The Netherlands
44. Ana Brandusescu, PhD Candidate, McGill University, Canada
45. Dr. Bailey Kacsmar, Assistant professor of Computing Science, University of Alberta, Canada
46. Dr. Patrick Brodie, Assistant Professor, Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland
47. Prof Luc Steels, Professor emeritus of Artificial Intelligence, Founder of Univ of Brussels (VUB) AI Laboratory in 1983, Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium
48. Dr. Jakub Szymanik, Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science, Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CiMeC) and the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Trento, Italy
49. Dr. Sabrina Mittermeier, Researcher and Lecturer in British and North American History, University of Kassel, Germany
50. Prof. Dr David van Leeuwen, Professor Computer Science, ICIS, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
51. Dr. Barbara Müller, Associate Professor Communication Science, Radboud Institute Nijmegen, The Netherlands
52. Prof. Nicky Dries, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Future of Work Lab, KU Leuven, Belgium
53. Dr. Ivan Flis, Postdoc, University of Rijeka, Croatia
54. dr. Seda Gurses, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
55. Robin Berjon, Principal, Supramundane Agency, Belgium
56. Dr. Ana-Maria Cretu, Postdoctoral researcher, EPFL, Switzerland
57. Dr. Joaquin Navajas Acedo, Postdoc, Biozentrum, Basel, Switzerland
58. Dr. James Steinhoff, Assistant Professor of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland
59. Dr. Dafni Hadjieconomou, Team leader, Paris Brain Institute, France
60. Professor Andrew Perfors, Professor in Psychological Sciences and Director of the Complex Human Data Hub, University of Melbourne, Australia
61. Dr. Adele R. Tufford, Research Staff, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands
62. Dr. ir. Gabriel Bucur, Assistant Professor in Statistical Machine Learning and Explainable AI for Health, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
63. Dr. Laura Speed, Assistant Professor Language and Communication, Radboud University, Netherlands
64. Tom Berben, Postdoctoral researcher, microbiology, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
65. Dr. Mirjam Broersma, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Radboud University, Centre for Language and Communication, The Netherlands
66. Aurélien Bellet, Research director (directeur de recherche), Inria, France
67. Prof. Niels Spierings, Professor of Sociology, Radboud University, The Netherlands
68. Dr Eva Rieter, Assistant professor public international law, Radboud University, The Netherlands
69. Prof. Dr. Ingo Frommholz, Professor in Applied Data Science, Modul University Vienna, Austria
70. Prof. M.J. Crockett, Professor of Psychology, Princeton University, United States of America
71. Prof. Teresa Heffernan, Professor of English Language and Literature, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, CAN
72. Prof. M. Dingemanse, Professor of Language and Communication & cofounder, EU Open Source AI Index, Centre for Language Studies,  Radboud University, Nijmegen
73. Andrea Reyes Elizondo, researcher of reading history and open science, Leiden University, The Netherlands