The European Parliament Passed a Draft Regulation Known as the A.I. Act

Today, the European Parliament passed a draft regulation known as the A.I. Act, which would put new restrictions on what are seen as the technology’s riskiest uses.

This draft regulation, presented by the Commission in April 2021 (https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/the-act/), and which led to a common position (‘general approach’) adopted by the Council of the EU on December 6, 2022 (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8115-2021-INIT/en/pdf), is a key element of the EU’s policy to foster the development and uptake across the single market of safe and lawful AI that respects fundamental rights.

This Bill provides for a definition of an AI system and sets forth prohibited AI practices. It takes a “risk-based” approach to regulating AI, focusing on applications with the greatest potential for human harm. MEPs expanded the classification of high-risk areas to include harm to people’s health, safety, fundamental rights or the environment.

Generative foundation models, like GPT, would have to comply with additional transparency requirements, like disclosing that the content was generated by AI, designing the model to prevent it from generating illegal content and publishing summaries of copyrighted data used for training.

One major area of debate is the use of facial recognition. The European Parliament voted to ban uses of live facial recognition, but questions remain about whether exemptions should be allowed for national security and other law enforcement purposes.

At the end of the day, negotiations are due to start with the Member States to finalize the Regulation as quickly as possible. But the Regulation will not come into force until 2026, at the earliest.

Compromise text available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/CJ40/DV/2023/05-11/ConsolidatedCA_IMCOLIBE_AI_ACT_EN.pdf