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EU parliament approves 'historic' and wide-ranging new rules on AI

High-risk AI providers will need conduct risk assessments and ensure their products comply with the law before making them public.

LAST UPDATE | 13 Mar 2024

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT gave final approval today to wide-ranging EU rules to govern artificial intelligence, including powerful systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Senior European Union officials say the rules, first proposed in 2021, will protect citizens from the possible risks of a technology developing at breakneck speed, while also fostering innovation on the continent.

Brussels has sprinted to pass the new law since OpenAI’s Microsoft-backed ChatGPT arrived on the scene in late 2022, unleashing a global AI race.

Further examples of generative AI models include DALL-E and Midjourney, which produce images, while other models produce sounds from a simple input in everyday language.

The far-reaching regulation passed with the support of 523 lawmakers in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, with 46 voting against.

The EU’s 27 states are expected to endorse the text in April before the law is published in the EU’s Official Journal in May or June.

“Today is again an historic day on our long path towards regulation of AI,” said Brando Benifei, an Italian lawmaker who pushed the text through parliament with Romanian MEP Dragos Tudorache.

“(This is) the first regulation in the world that is putting a clear path towards a safe and human-centric development of AI,” Benifei added, speaking just before the vote.

“We managed to find that very delicate balance between the interest to innovate and the interest to protect,” Tudorache told journalists before the vote.

The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, hailed the vote.

“I welcome the overwhelming support from the European Parliament for the EU AI Act,” he said. “Europe is now a global standard-setter in trustworthy AI.”

Rules covering AI models like ChatGPT will enter into force 12 months after the law becomes official, while companies must comply with most other provisions in two years.

AI policing restrictions

The EU’s rules known as the “AI Act” take a risk-based approach: the riskier the system, the tougher the requirements – with outright bans on the AI tools deemed to carry the most threat.

For example, high-risk AI providers must conduct risk assessments and ensure their products comply with the law before they are made available to the public.

“We are regulating as little as possible and as much as needed, with proportionate measures for AI models,” Breton told AFP.

Violations can see companies hit with fines ranging from 7.5 million to 35 million euros ($8.2 million to $38.2 million), depending on the type of infringement and the firm’s size.

There are strict bans on using AI for predictive policing and systems that use biometric information to infer an individual’s race, religion or sexual orientation.

The rules also ban real-time facial recognition in public spaces but with some exceptions for law enforcement, although police must seek approval from a judicial authority before any AI deployment.

Lobbies vs watchdogs

Since AI will likely transform every aspect of Europeans’ lives and big tech firms are vying for dominance in what will be a lucrative market, the EU has been subject to intense lobbying over the legislation.

Watchdogs on Tuesday pointed to campaigning by French AI startup Mistral AI and Germany’s Aleph Alpha as well as US-based tech giants like Google and Microsoft.

They warned the implementation of the new rules “could be further weakened by corporate lobbying”, adding that research showed “just how strong corporate influence” was during negotiations.

“Many details of the AI Act are still open and need to be clarified in numerous implementing acts, for example, with regard to standards, thresholds or transparency obligations,” three watchdogs based in Belgium, France and Germany said.

Commissioner Breton stressed that the EU “withstood the special interests and lobbyists calling to exclude large AI models from the regulation”, adding: “The result is a balanced, risk-based and future-proof regulation.”

Lawmaker Tudorache said the law was “one of the… heaviest lobbied pieces of legislation, certainly in this mandate”, but insisted: “We resisted the pressure.”

© Agence France-Presse

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    Mute Keith DArcy
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:10 AM

    I half expected to find out how Gangnam Style changed YouTube forever. Should have known better, yet another click phishing article.

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:19 AM

    Do you know what phishing is?

    47
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    Mute Keith DArcy
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:07 PM

    I do, thanks for asking. It’s a means to acquire information by deception.

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:55 PM

    And what information has this article acquired from you by you clicking into it?

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    Mute Colin C
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:03 PM

    Someone give him back his click, please.

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    Mute Andy Patton
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:07 PM

    This isn’t phishing, Leopold – it’s click-baiting.

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:11 PM

    That’s what I was getting at Andy. I was just appreciating the irony of someone using deceptive wording to complain about an article using deceptive wording.

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    Mute Tom Red
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:22 AM

    Joan Burton getting pegged with the water balloon must be catching up by now????….

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    Mute JJ O Riordan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:33 AM

    Cam we have one story on the journal without some gobsh!te mentioning the government, or Irish water, or protests in the comments?

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    Mute JJ O Riordan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:34 AM

    Can* the joys of spellchecker on a phone.

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    Mute Tap Solny
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:42 AM

    The small mind can only try to focus on one issue at a time. The small mind cannot even comprehend the one issue that it is trying to focus on.

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    Mute Andy Lane
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:48 AM

    I blame the liberal, neo-socialist lefty media. And the feminazis.

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    Mute JJ O Riordan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:55 AM

    For the comments or the spellchecker haha

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    Mute dstaffx
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:28 AM

    Remember when Garth Brooks was mentioned in every article comment section. Oh the pain.

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    Mute ChocSaltyBallz
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:55 AM

    Not so smart phone

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:35 AM

    Here’s how Facebook helped catch a thug.
    Here’s how Gangnam Style changed Youtube.
    I know the Journal tend toward spells of thematic saturation. Is this to be a week/month of website articles containing ~150 words unrelated to the title’s claim?

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    Mute Andrew Doyle
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:30 AM

    By change YouTube forever do they mean increase the number of advertisements??

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    Mute John Horan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:40 AM

    2^32 is 4 billion, so they must be using signed ints, just in case a video is watched a negative number of times?

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    Mute Colin C
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:05 PM

    If even 50% of journal commentators knew what a signed int was, the world would be a better place.

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 4:26 PM

    I don’t know what it is but I know what you can do with it.

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    Mute Colin C
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 5:26 PM

    There there.

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    Mute J
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:31 AM

    “640k ought to be enough for anybody”
    -Bill Gates

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:00 PM

    “I’ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time … I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640 K of memory is enough. There’s never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again. ”

    - Bill Gates.

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    Mute J
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:23 PM

    “Yes I know he never said that”
    -J

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    Mute Spoddgy
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:18 AM

    What did we all learn? That young people are idiots and that people that are hitting past 35 or more should know better than try impress them! Turk out!

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    Mute Lastpost
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 2:32 PM

    South Korean tripe, maybe they think we have a problem with drinking, but we all know they have a problem with music, no talent

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