site.btaBulgarian Voices for Europe: Artificial Intelligence

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the media poses huge threats, said Director General of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Kiril Valchev at the opening of the Conference Bulgarian Voices for Europe: Artificial Intelligence at the BTA National Press Club in Sofia.

According to Valchev, artificial intelligence should not replace natural intelligence, but only be in service to people. He said that Europe lags far behind in terms of AI development and stressed that Europeans have lost a lot of time, but this is not unequivocal, because the fact that this conversation is taking place means that we have created something with our own intelligence based on the belief that nothing in the world can replace human emotions, including the greatest one of them, love.

The subject of artificial intelligence is extremely important in the context of hostilities, but nothing can and should replace human intelligence, said by MEP Petar Vitanov at the forum.

According to him, AI is gaining great popularity in the European Parliament (EP), because this technology is already used in every field. That is why the European Commission is proposing the creation of an Artificial Intelligence Act, which should define the extent to which we must allow innovation to replace human activity. The emphasis is on how to preserve basic human rights, and artificial intelligence should not be in the way of business, Vitanov said. The MEP commented that the big challenges in the European Union are related to how to protect the rights of European citizens without hindering innovation.

Artificial intelligence is not useful in and of itself, but only in synergy with other digital technologies we have such as blockchains, the Internet of Things, virtual reality, medicine, etc., said Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).

Artificial intelligence is developing in waves, and we are now in its third or fourth wave, said Assoc. Prof. Kiril Simov from the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at BAS. It can be expected that the current wave of AI will improve the technological development of the world without compromising security, and people's fears are completely unnecessary, he added.