Glossary: AI and Switzerland

Term	Explanation
AGI	Artificial General Intelligence — an AI system capable of performing any intellectual task at human level. Does not yet exist.
AHV	Old-age and survivors' insurance — Switzerland's mandatory state pension scheme (1st pillar). Acutely threatened by AI-related job losses.
ALV	Unemployment insurance — social insurance that protects employees in case of unemployment.
BFS	Federal Statistical Office — produces Switzerland's demographic, economic, and social statistics.
BGE	Universal basic income — regular government payment to all citizens without conditions.
BIP	Gross domestic product — total value of all goods and services produced in a country within a year.
BSV	Federal Social Insurance Office — responsible for AHV, IV, and other social insurance schemes.
Bürgerdividende	Citizen dividend — proposed direct participation of the population in AI-driven productivity gains, e.g. as an annual distribution.
BVG	Federal Act on Occupational Retirement, Survivors' and Disability Pension Plans — 2nd pillar (pension fund); operates through employer contributions.
CO2	Carbon dioxide — greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Relevant for AI data centres and their energy consumption.
CSCS	Swiss National Supercomputing Centre — in Lugano (operates the «Alps» supercomputer, among others).
Deepfake	AI-generated image, audio, or video forgeries that appear deceptively real. Danger to democracy and trust.
DLT	Distributed Ledger Technology — distributed record-keeping (e.g. blockchain). Switzerland is a centre with its «Crypto Valley».
DSG	Federal Act on Data Protection — revised and in force since 1 September 2023. Regulates the handling of personal data in Switzerland.
DSGVO	General Data Protection Regulation — EU framework for the protection of personal data. Also applies indirectly to Swiss companies with EU customers.
EDÖB	Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner — supervisory authority for data protection in Switzerland.
EO	Income Compensation Scheme — salary replacement during military service, maternity, and paternity leave.
EPFL	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne — leading in AI research.
ETH	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich — one of the world's leading technical universities.
EU AI Act	European Union Regulation on Artificial Intelligence — the world's first comprehensive AI regulation (in force since 2024).
EZB	European Central Bank — central bank of the eurozone. Relevant for monetary and financial policy in the AI era.
FINMA	Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority — regulates banks, insurance companies, and financial market infrastructures.
Fiskalische Lücke	Fiscal gap — shortfall in social insurance when AI-related salary contributions decrease. Estimated at up to CHF 116 billion.
GPT	Generative Pre-trained Transformer — class of large language models (LLMs) by OpenAI (GPT-3, GPT-4 etc.).
GPU	Graphics Processing Unit — used for AI training because it enables massively parallel computations.
IDSIA	Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale — AI research institute in Lugano (USI/SUPSI). Birthplace of the LSTM network.
IEA	International Energy Agency — produces forecasts on energy consumption (including data centres).
ITER	International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor — the world's largest nuclear fusion experiment (southern France). Could provide unlimited clean energy.
IV	Disability insurance — social insurance for people with health-related incapacity to work.
IWF	International Monetary Fund — international organisation for economic and financial stability.
KI	Artificial intelligence — umbrella term for computer systems that perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence.
KMU	Small and medium-sized enterprises — businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
KOF	KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich — produces economic forecasts and business cycle barometers.
LAWS	Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems — lethal autonomous weapon systems that attack without human control. Internationally controversial.
LLM	Large Language Model — AI system trained on vast amounts of text (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude).
LSTM	Long Short-Term Memory — neural network developed in 1997 at IDSIA. Foundation for speech recognition, machine translation, and ChatGPT.
Machine Learning	Machine learning — subfield of AI in which algorithms learn from data without being explicitly programmed.
ML	Machine Learning — machine learning; subfield of AI.
NLP	Natural Language Processing — subfield of AI that analyses and generates natural language.
SNB	Swiss National Bank — Switzerland's central bank.
SPHN	Swiss Personalized Health Network — national initiative for using health data for personalised medicine.
Transfer Learning	Transfer learning — method in which a pre-trained AI model is adapted for new tasks, saving training time and data.

Abbreviation	Meaning
AGI	Artificial General Intelligence
AHV	Old-age and survivors' insurance
ALV	Unemployment insurance
BFS	Federal Statistical Office
BGE	Universal basic income
BIP	Gross domestic product
BSV	Federal Social Insurance Office
BVG	Federal Act on Occupational Retirement, Survivors' and Disability Pension Plans
CO2	Carbon dioxide
CSCS	Swiss National Supercomputing Centre
DLT	Distributed Ledger Technology
DSG	Federal Act on Data Protection
DSGVO	General Data Protection Regulation
EDÖB	Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner
EO	Income Compensation Scheme
EPFL	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
ETH	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
EU AI Act	European Union Regulation on Artificial Intelligence
EZB	European Central Bank
FINMA	Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
GPT	Generative Pre-trained Transformer
GPU	Graphics Processing Unit
IDSIA	Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale
IEA	International Energy Agency
ITER	International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
IV	Disability insurance
IWF	International Monetary Fund
KI	Artificial intelligence
KMU	Small and medium-sized enterprises
KOF	KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich
LAWS	Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems
LLM	Large Language Model
LSTM	Long Short-Term Memory
ML	Machine Learning
NLP	Natural Language Processing
SNB	Swiss National Bank
SPHN	Swiss Personalized Health Network

Glossary: AI and Switzerland

Glossary

List of Abbreviations