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EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act

Date
May 30, 2024
Category

EU Regulations

Description

The EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act was passed in the European Parliament on 13 March 2024 and was approved by the EU Council on 21 May 2024. It will come into force 20 days after being published in the Official Journal, which is expected by the end of this week when the current legislative term ends prior to European elections in early June.

The AI Act classifies AI according to its risk:

  • Unacceptable risk is prohibited (e.g. social scoring systems and manipulative AI).
  • Most of the text addresses high-risk AI systems, which are regulated.
  • A smaller section handles limited risk AI systems, subject to lighter transparency obligations: developers and deployers must ensure that end-users are aware that they are interacting with AI (chatbots and deepfakes).
  • Minimal risk is unregulated (including the majority of AI applications currently available on the EU single market, such as AI enabled video games and spam filters – at least in 2021; this is changing with generative AI).

The majority of obligations fall on providers (developers) of high-risk AI systems.

  • Those that intend to place on the market or put into service high-risk AI systems in the EU, regardless of whether they are based in the EU or a third country.
  • And also third country providers where the high risk AI system’s output is used in the EU.

Users are natural or legal persons that deploy an AI system in a professional capacity, not affected end-users.

  • Users (deployers) of high-risk AI systems have some obligations, though less than providers (developers).
  • This applies to users located in the EU, and third country users where the AI system’s output is used in the EU.

General purpose AI (GPAI):

  • All GPAI model providers must provide technical documentation, instructions for use, comply with the Copyright Directive, and publish a summary about the content used for training.
  • Free and open licence GPAI model providers only need to comply with copyright and publish the training data summary, unless they present a systemic risk.
  • All providers of GPAI models that present a systemic risk – open or closed – must also conduct model evaluations, adversarial testing, track and report serious incidents and ensure cybersecurity protections.

Full details can be found at https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/.