European Parliament lawmakers were yesterday to vote to launch talks to approve the world’s first sweeping rules on artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT, aiming to curb potential harms while nurturing innovation.
Although the EU’s plans date back to 2021, the draft rules took on greater urgency when ChatGPT exploded onto the scene last year, showing off AI’s dizzying development and the possible risks.
There is also growing clamor to regulate AI across the Atlantic, as pressure grows on Western governments to act quickly in what some are describing as a battle to protect humanity.
Photo: AFP
While AI proponents hail the technology for how it will transform society, including work, healthcare and creative pursuits, others are terrified by its potential to undermine democracy.
Once adopted by the EU parliament, negotiations for a final law with the bloc’s 27 member states would begin almost immediately, likely later in the day, officials said.
The race is on to strike an agreement on final legislation by the end of the year.
Even if that target is achieved, the law would not come into force until 2026 at the earliest, forcing the EU to push for a voluntary interim pact with tech companies.
Brussels and the US last month agreed to release a common code of conduct on AI to develop standards among democracies.
Lawmakers have hailed the draft law as “historic” and pushed back against critics who say the EU’s plans could harm rather than encourage innovation.
“Is this the right time for Europe to regulate AI? My answer is resolutely yes — it is the right time because of the profound impact AI has,” European Parliament Member Dragos Tudorache said during a parliamentary debate in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
“What we can do here is to create trust, legal certainty, to enable AI to develop in a positive manner,” European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager said.
The law would regulate AI according to the level of risk: The higher the risk to individuals’ rights or health, for example, the greater the systems’ obligations.
The EU’s proposed high-risk list includes AI in critical infrastructure, education, human resources, public order and migration management.
The parliament added extra conditions before the high-risk classification would be met, including the potential to harm people’s health, safety, rights or the environment.
There are also special requirements for generative AI systems — those such as ChatGPT and DALL-E capable of producing text, images, code, audio and other media — that include informing users that a machine, not a human, produced the content.
European Parliament Member Brando Benifei, who is also spearheading the law, called for a “common approach” to tackle AI risks.
“We need to compare notes with lawmakers all around the world,” he said.
Tudorache added that the law was needed “because hoping that companies will self-regulate is not enough to safeguard our citizens.”
Throughout the parliament’s scramble to reach an agreement that began last year, advocates have urged the EU to protect people’s rights.
Under the parliamentary committee text approved last month, lawmakers proposed bans on AI systems that use biometric surveillance, emotion recognition and so-called predictive policing.
However, Amnesty International advocacy advisor on AI regulation Mher Hakobyan said this was at risk, because “parliament may upend considerable human rights protections” that were agreed on by parliamentary committees last month.
There are still fears that, even if lawmakers agree on those bans, they might not make it into the final law after negotiations with EU member states.
“There’s a real risk that when the state representatives get involved, a lot of these protections could be removed or significantly watered down,” said Griff Ferris, senior legal and policy officer at non-governmental group Fair Trials.
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