EU Regulation in the Pipeline: Rules for Safe and Transparent AI

Jul 28, 2023 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

After two years of negotiations, the European Parliament has adopted the compromise text of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Regulation on 14 June. The next steps will now be to hold discussions with EU Member States on the final form of the law. The regulation could be in place by the end of 2023.

The rules aim to promote the introduction of human-centred and trustworthy AI and to protect health, safety, fundamental rights, and democracy from harmful consequences. However, the Commission representatives also stressed that the aim is to foster innovation in order to promote AI in the EU.

AI developed and deployed in the EU should fully respect the rights and values of the European Union. This includes being subject to human oversight, meeting security, privacy and transparency requirements, not discriminating against anyone, and not harming society or the environment.

The draft classifies generative AI applications, such as ChatGPT, into specific risk groups. This is then linked to safety and transparency requirements. AI systems that pose an unacceptable risk to human safety would be banned altogether. Examples include ‘social scoring’, which classifies natural persons based on their social behaviour or personality traits, or predictive policing, which uses profiling and location tracking to assess the risk of a person becoming a criminal based on past criminal behaviour. High-risk AI that poses a significant threat to health, safety, and fundamental rights has been added to a corresponding list. Applications include systems to influence voters and election results, and recommendation systems on social media platforms.

Providers of new, rapidly advancing AI developments will be required to assess and mitigate the risks and register their models in an EU database before entering the EU market.

The regulation will then apply to all providers of AI-based services and products placed on the market or put into service in the EU, as well as to all users of the systems in the EU.

P9_TA (2023)0236 (14 June 2023)