In June 2022, the Spanish government announced in Brussels the Sandbox of AI regulation Spanish. One Sandbox regulator it is a mechanism used by governing bodies to adapt regulation to a rapidly changing environment. This is achieved by defining, for a specific space and time, a testing ground where certain parts of the regulatory framework (a series of laws or rules) can be relaxed or abandoned. This is certain in the way that private companies developing AI-related innovations are legally covered by the Sandbox for activities involving citizens and other public organizations and bodies. The objective is to eliminate those regulatory barriers that hinder innovation, promoting systemic transformations.
Them Sandbox regulators differ from Testbeds for the development, testing and expansion of products or services precisely with regard to the regulatory dimension. But, if the innovation process is taking place in a real-life environment within the quadruple helix perspective and in a citizen-centered approach, we will speak of a citizen-centered approach. Living Lab. Therefore, policy recommendations and regulatory changes can be seen as relevant outcomes for Testbeds, Sandboxes and Living Labs. However, in essence, they are different forms of implementation for the approach ‘test before investing’ (try before you invest) to what the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH) aim for and from an open innovation perspective.
Recently, I had the opportunity to be the coordinator of the joint working group “Living Labs as Regulatory Learning Tools”, in which the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) and the Joint Research Center (JRC) participate. The initial joint output has been the JRC policy brief “JRC Science for Policy Brief “Regulatory learning in experimentation spaces” published in December 2022, which provides a valuable entry point to these instruments. Among others, two relevant contributions can be highlighted: 1) The development of the concept of “regulatory learning“, understood as both knowledge about the regulatory body, but also about what innovation – and the society of the future – is plausible; and 2) The identification of the explicit definition of citizenship as actors – and not factors – of the innovation process through the approaches of Living Labs. These two dimensions will be developed in depth in other publications from our working group, planned for the third and fourth quarters of 2023.
If we want to move towards acceptable AI, we must develop mechanisms that allow citizens to be part of the processes of digital, green and social transformations that take place in our real-life environments, such as hospitals, roads, streets, museums, public libraries, etc. This citizen empowerment (the real democratization of access to innovation) will open the door to new models of shared governance for our cities and communities, making this issue one of the most urgent challenges to allow innovation, growth and positive social transformation to happen hand in hand.
The discussion is of utmost interest, and we will have the opportunity to discuss AI, the ““test before investing” and the link between the EDIHs, the Testbeds, the Living Labs and the Sandbox during the Open Living Lab Days (OLLD23) which will take place from 20 to 23 September 2023 in Barcelona. Join us!