06/14/2023

Europe Moves Ahead on AI Regulation

It is committed to challenging tech giants’ power

European Union (E.U.) lawmakers on Wednesday took a key step toward passing a landmark artificial intelligence bill, putting Brussels on a collision course with American tech giants funneling billions of dollars into the burgeoning technology.

The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved the E.U. AI Act, a sweeping package that aims to protect consumers from potentially dangerous applications of artificial intelligence — reacting to concerns that recent advances in the technology could be used to nefarious ends, ushering in surveillance, algorithmically driven discrimination and prolific misinformation that could upend democracy.

The legislation takes a "risk-based approach," introducing restrictions based on how dangerous lawmakers predict an AI application could be. It would ban tools that European lawmakers deem "unacceptable," such as systems allowing law enforcement to predict criminal behavior using analytics. It would introduce new limits on technologies simply deemed "high risk," like tools that could sway voters to influence elections or recommendation algorithms, which suggest what posts, photos and videos people see on social networks.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.