The EU reached a hard-fought deal on what is poised to become the most comprehensive regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the western world.
Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market chief, said the deal strikes a balance between fostering innovation and protecting the rights of people and companies.
“We spent a lot of time on finding the right balance between making the most of AI potential to support law enforcement while protecting our citizens’ fundamental rights,” he said early yesterday in a statement. “We do not want any mass surveillance in Europe.”
Photo: AP
After more than 37 hours of negotiations this week, delegates from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the 27 member countries agreed to a set of controls for generative AI tools such as OpenAI Inc’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard — the kind capable of producing content on command.
The negotiators agreed to allow some live scanning of faces, but with safeguards and exemptions, Breton said.
The deal would prohibit biometric scanning that categorizes people by sensitive characteristics, such as political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation or race. Officials said this was one of the most difficult and sensitive issues in the talks.
The proposed legislation would impose financial penalties on companies that violate the rules, with fines up to 35 million euros (US$37.7 million), or 7 percent of global turnover, depending on the infringement and the size of the company.
The draft legislation still needs to be formally approved by EU member states and the European Parliament, but the deal marks a critical step toward landmark AI policy that could — in the absence of any meaningful action by the US Congress — set the tone for the regulation of the fast-developing technology. The EU is aiming to enact the first firm guardrails on AI outside of Asia.
The decision was hammered out at a session on Friday following a nearly 24-hour marathon that stretched from Wednesday to Thursday.
The difficult discussions underscore how contentious the debate over regulating AI has become, dividing world leaders and tech executives alike as generative tools continue to explode in popularity. The EU has struggled to find a balance between the need to protect its own AI start-ups against potential societal risks.
That proved to be a key sticking point in negotiations, with some countries including France and Germany opposing rules that they said would unnecessarily handicap local companies.
The trickiest point came down to how far to restrict live biometric identification tools. The parliament voted for a complete ban last spring, however, EU countries pushed for exemptions for national security and law enforcement. In the end, the two sides agreed to limit the use of the technology in public spaces with more guardrails.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS