Artificial Intelligence: The new technology that has taken the field by storm.
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“Europe is now the global standard-setter in AI,” Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, wrote on X.
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsula, called the act trailblazing, saying it would protect fundamental rights while enabling innovation.
“Artificial intelligence is already very much a part of our daily lives. Now, it will be part of our legislation as well,” he wrote in a social media post.
Dragos Todorache, the lawmaker overseeing the EU’s negotiations of the deal, praised the deal, but noted that the biggest hurdle is implementation.
Due in 2021, the EU AI Act divides the technology into risk categories, ranging from “unacceptable” – in which the technology will be banned – to high, medium and low risk.
The regulation is expected to enter into force at the end of the legislature in May, after final scrutiny and approval from the European Council. Its implementation will be staggered from 2025 onwards.
Some EU countries have previously advocated self-regulation over government-led sanctions, amid concerns that curbing regulation could hinder Europe’s growth to compete with Chinese and American companies in the tech sector. can Opponents include Germany and France, which have some of Europe’s most promising AI startups.
The European Union is striving to keep pace with the consumer impact of technological advances and the market dominance of key players.
Last week, the union enacted landmark antitrust legislation to rein in the American giants. Under the Digital Markets Act, the EU can crack down on anti-competitive practices by big tech companies and force them to open up their services in sectors where their dominant position has squeezed smaller players and consumers. So freedom of choice has been strangled. Six firms – US titans Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and China’s Bitus – have been put on notice as so-called “gatekeepers”.
Concerns over the potential for misuse of artificial intelligence are growing, even as heavyweight players such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and chipmaker Nvidia beat the drum for AI investment.
Governments fear the prospect of deepfakes — forms of artificial intelligence that fake events, including photos and videos — being deployed in the lead-up to key global elections this year.
Some AI proponents are already regulating themselves to avoid misinformation. On Tuesday, Google announced that it would limit the type of election-related questions that can be asked of its Gemini chatbot, saying it had already implemented the changes in the US and India.
“The AI Act moves the development of AI in a direction where humans are in control of technology, and where technology will help us leverage new discoveries to unlock economic growth, social progress, and human potential,” Tudorache said on social media on March 12.
“The AI Act is not the end of the journey, but rather, the starting point of a new model of governance built around technology. We must now focus our political energies on shifting the law from books to reality. Earth, ” he added.
Legal experts hailed the act as a major milestone for international AI regulation, saying it could pave the way for other countries to follow suit.
“Again, it’s the EU that has moved first, creating a very comprehensive set of regulations,” said Steven Farmer, a partner at international law firm Pillsbury and an expert on AI.
“Block rushed to regulate data, which gave us GDPR, which we’re seeing a global conversion to,” he continued, referring to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation law. “It appears that the AI Act is a case of history repeating itself.”
Mark Ferguson, a public policy expert at Pinsent Masons, added that the passage of the act was just the beginning, and that businesses will need to work with lawmakers to understand how it will be implemented. Because the fast-moving technology continues to evolve.