The European Union (EU) has recently defined new ground rules in the digital realm by passing the EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. As reported by Legal Tech News, the act became law on March 13, with a strong majority vote in the European Parliament, marking it as one of the world’s pioneer legislations to regulate AI comprehensively.
Central to the Act is its risk-based methodology in regulating AI technology. The Act’s requirements and enforcement mechanisms vary accordingly based on the level of potential risk AI systems could pose to users. The breadth of the Act’s jurisdiction is deliberate, extending beyond Europe, but also diving into specifics on compliance requirements bifurcation among developers and deployers of AI systems – a stratagem largely seen as unique to this EU regulation.
The EU AI Act also attempts to clarify ambiguities around liability between providers and users and offers a look into the potential future of enforcement in Europe, in the post-General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) milieu. This bold move by the European Union will not doubt have significant impacts and is likely to catalyze further discussions and regulations on AI technology worldwide.