European AI law – How the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence – News

It’s all about this: Will artificial intelligence (AI) soon take over human thinking? Is it a threat to the rule of law and democracy? Or much more trailblazer for innovations? It is still unclear where the development will lead. A lot seems abstract. But the EU is now trying to regulate the abstract with a concrete law. If passed, the law would be the world‘s first to comprehensively regulate AI.

How the EU Parliament wants to regulate artificial intelligence: On Wednesday, the European Parliament defined its position on the law proposed by the EU Commission. According to the will of the EU Parliament, AI systems should be divided into different risk groups. The more risk an AI application poses, the more strictly it should be regulated. For example, systems that can be used to influence voters should be considered high-risk.

What to ban: In certain areas, the use of artificial intelligence is to be banned entirely. For example, face recognition in real time should not be allowed in public spaces. This could include video surveillance with automatic face recognition at train stations.

So-called social credit systems are also to be banned. Such systems are already being tested and used in China. They collect data about people’s social behavior or ability to pay and can form the basis of penalties. Systems that classify people according to ethnic characteristics, gender or political orientation are also to be banned

What about systems like ChatGPT? Providers of so-called “generative AI systems” – such as the text robot ChatGPT is one – must comply with certain transparency requirements according to the will of Parliament. You must disclose when content has been generated by artificial intelligence. For example, so-called deepfake photos and videos should be made distinguishable from real images.

This is how it goes on: The law has not yet been decided. The EU Parliament, the EU Commission and the EU member states must now jointly agree on a definitive legal text. These so-called trilogue negotiations could drag on for months.