Following 3-day negotiations, the Council presidency and the European Parliament’s negotiators have reached a provisional agreement on the EU’s proposed Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act).
The EU’s AI Act is anticipated to be the world’s first comprehensive set of rules to govern AI and could serve as a benchmark for other regions looking to pass similar laws.
The draft regulation aims to ensure that AI systems placed on the European market and used in the EU are safe and respect fundamental rights and EU values.
According to the press release, negotiators established obligations for “high-impact” general-purpose AI (GPAI) systems that meet certain benchmarks, like risk assessments, adversarial testing, incident reports, and more.
The law still needs to go through a few final steps for approval, but its key outlines have set.
European policymakers focused on AI’s riskiest uses by companies and governments, including those for law enforcement and the operation of crucial services such as water and energy.
The AI act also mandates transparency by those systems that include creating technical documents and “detailed summaries about the content used for training” — something companies like ChatGPT maker OpenAI have refused to do so far.
Another element is that citizens should have a right to launch complaints about AI systems and receive explanations about decisions on “high-risk” systems that impact their rights.
Chatbots and software that creates manipulated images such as “deepfakes” would have to make clear that what people were seeing was generated by AI, according to EU officials and earlier drafts of the law.
Use of facial recognition software by police and governments would be restricted outside of certain safety and national security exemptions.
The AI act also had a framework for fines if companies break the rules. Companies that violated the regulations could face fines of up to 7% of global sales.
The final agreement was not immediately public as talks were expected to continue behind the scenes to complete technical details, which could delay final passage. Votes must be held in Parliament and the European Council, which comprises representatives of 27 countries in the union.
