The German government has set aside around three billion euros for research and development of artificial intelligence, as Europe's economic powerhouse seeks to close a gap in software-led innovation with America and Asia.
The sum to be spent up to 2025, outlined in a draft paper seen by Reuters on "AI made in Germany", is a measure of the concern felt in Berlin at the challenge that digital technologies and AI pose to Germany's traditional export-focused manufacturing industries.
The paper also stresses the "social policy and labor" aspects of AI, reflecting nervousness in traditionally privacy-conscious Germany at the way rampant technological change might disrupt existing social models.
"We want to promote the use of AI applications in business," the paper states. "A technology with such a profound impact as artificial intelligence... (must) be embedded in a... framework that protects fundamental social values and individual rights."
