Artificial intelligence
(BRUSSELS) – The EU Parliament and Council reached provisional agreement Friday on the Artificial Intelligence Act, to ensure AI is safe, respects fundamental rights, and allows businesses to thrive.
The regulation aims to ensure that fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability are protected from high risk AI, while boosting innovation and making Europe a leader in the field. The rules establish obligations for AI based on its potential risks and level of impact.
Recognising the potential threat to citizens’ rights and democracy posed by certain applications of AI, the co-legislators agreed to prohibit:
- biometric categorisation systems that use sensitive characteristics (e.g. political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, race);
- untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases;
- emotion recognition in the workplace and educational institutions;
- social scoring based on social behaviour or personal characteristics;
- AI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will;
- AI used to exploit the vulnerabilities of people (due to their age, disability, social or economic situation).
A series of safeguards and narrow exceptions were agreed for the use of biometric identification systems (RBI) in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement purposes, subject to prior judicial authorisation and for strictly defined lists of crime. “Post-remote” RBI would be used strictly in the targeted search of a person convicted or suspected of having committed a serious crime.
“Real-time” RBI would comply with strict conditions and its use would be limited in time and location, for the purposes of: targeted searches of victims (abduction, trafficking, sexual exploitation), prevention of a specific and present terrorist threat, or the localisation or identification of a person suspected of having committed one of the specific crimes mentioned in the regulation (e.g. terrorism, trafficking, sexual exploitation, murder, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, participation in a criminal organisation, environmental crime).
For AI systems classified as high-risk (due to their significant potential harm to health, safety, fundamental rights, environment, democracy and the rule of law), clear obligations were agreed. There will be a mandatory fundamental rights impact assessment, among other requirements, applicable also to the insurance and banking sectors. AI systems used to influence the outcome of elections and voter behaviour, are also classified as high-risk. Citizens will have a right to launch complaints about AI systems and receive explanations about decisions based on high-risk AI systems that impact their rights.
General-purpose AI (GPAI) systems, and the GPAI models they are based on, will have to adhere to transparency requirements as initially proposed by Parliament. These include drawing up technical documentation, complying with EU copyright law and disseminating detailed summaries about the content used for training.
For high-impact GPAI models with systemic risk, there will be more stringent obligations. If these models meet certain criteria they will have to conduct model evaluations, assess and mitigate systemic risks, conduct adversarial testing, report to the Commission on serious incidents, ensure cybersecurity and report on their energy efficiency. Until harmonised EU standards are published, GPAIs with systemic risk may rely on codes of practice to comply with the regulation.
Non-compliance with the rules can lead to fines ranging from 35 million euro or 7% of global turnover to 7.5 million or 1.5% of turnover, depending on the infringement and size of the company.
New rules for Artificial Intelligence Questions and Answers (update available shortly)
New rules for Artificial Intelligence Facts page
Hiroshima AI Process: Guiding Principles and a Code of Conduct on Artificial Intelligence
Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence
Regulation on Machinery Products
Liability Rules for Artificial Intelligence
European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency, Joint Research Centre
