Europe’s AI Act Would Regulate Tech Globally Posted on : Jun 09 - 2022

The Artificial Intelligence Act was introduced to the European Union in April 2021, and is rapidly progressing through comment periods and rewrites. When it goes into effect, which experts say could occur at the beginning of 2023, it will have a broad impact on the use of AI and machine learning for citizens and companies around the world.

The AI law aims to create a common regulatory and legal framework for the use of AI, including how it’s developed, what companies can use it for, and the legal consequences of failing to adhere to the requirements. The law will likely require companies to receive approval before adopting AI for some use cases, outlaw certain other AI uses deemed too risky, and create a public list of other high-risk AI uses.

At a broad level, the law seeks to codify the EU’s trustworthy AI paradigm, according to an official presentation on the law by the European Commission, the continent’s governing body. That paradigm “requires AI to be legally, ethically, and technically robust, while respecting democratic values, human rights, and the rule of law,” the EC says.

While a lot of the particulars of the new law are still up in air–including, critically, the definition of AI–a key element appears to be its “product safety framework,” which categorizes prospective AI products into four horizontal categories that apply across all industries.

At the bottom of the “pyramid of criticality” are systems with minimal risk, according to a 2021 EC presentation on the new law compiled by Maruritz Kop of the Stanford-Vienna Transatlantic Technology Law Forum. AI uses that fall into this category are exempt from the transparency requirements that riskier systems must pass. In the “limited risk” category are AI systems, such as chatbots, that have some transparency requirements. View More