Artificial Intelligence Act: EU Lawmakers Pass World's First Comprehensive Law on AI

European lawmakers on Wednesday voted to approve the world's first comprehensive artificial intelligence law, known as the AI Act, to implement sweeping rules for developers of AI systems.

Additionally, the act would also impose new restrictions on how the technology can be used. The European Parliament voted to give its final approval of the law following lawmakers reaching a political agreement with European Union member states in December last year.

EU's AI Act

European lawmakers passed the world's first comprehensive law on artificial intelligence, known as the AI Act, that seeks to regulate the rapidly advancing technology.
(Photo : Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP) (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)

The new rules, which are expected to take effect gradually over the next few years, will ban certain uses of AI, introduce new transparency rules, and require risk assessments for AI systems that are considered to be high-risk.

The AI Act comes amid a global debate regarding the future of artificial intelligence as well as its potential risks and benefits. This comes as the technology is increasingly adopted by various companies and consumers worldwide.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAi and its chief executive, Sam Altman, for supposedly breaking the company's founding agreement. This was by giving priority to profit over AI's benefits for humanity, according to Fox Business.

On the other hand, Altman argued that AI should be developed with great caution as it offers immense commercial possibilities. The new EU legislation will apply to AI products in the EU market, regardless of where they were developed. It will implement fines of up to 7% of a company's worldwide revenue.

An EU lawmaker from Italy, Brando Benifei, who helped lead negotiations on the new law, said that the AI Act is the "first regulation in the world that is putting a clear path towards a safe and human-centric development of AI."

Despite the development, the AI Act still needs to get final approval from EU member states. However, that is a process that many expect to be a formality since they have already given the legislation their political endorsement.

Regulating Artificial Intelligence

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the European commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, said that Europe is now a global standard-setter in AI. Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament, described the new AI Act as trailblazing. She added that it would enable innovation while also safeguarding fundamental rights, said CNBC.

Breton noted that artificial intelligence has already become a large part of people's lives and it will now also become a part of their legislation. A lawmaker who oversaw EU negotiations on the agreement, Dragos Tudorache, touted the law but noted that its biggest challenge is implementation.

The EU AI Act was born in 2021 and divides the technology into categories of risk that range from "unacceptable," which would prompt the banning of the technology, to high, medium, and low hazard.

The legislation would also ban certain AI applications that threaten citizens' rights, including biometric categorization systems that are based on sensitive characteristics and untargeted scraping of facial images online. This also includes CCTV footage being used to create facial recognition databases.

However, there are some exemptions to the rules, including the use of biometric identification systems (RBI) by law enforcement. While this is prohibited in principle, officials are given an exemption in exhaustively listed and narrowly defined situations, according to the European Parliament.