Europe agrees landmark AI regulation deal
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[December 09, 2023]
By Foo Yun Chee, Martin Coulter and Supantha Mukherjee
BRUSSELS/LONDON/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Europe on Friday reached a
provisional deal on landmark European Union rules governing the use of
artificial intelligence including governments' use of AI in biometric
surveillance and how to regulate AI systems such as ChatGPT.
With the political agreement, the EU moves toward becoming the first
major world power to enact laws governing AI. Friday's deal between EU
countries and European Parliament members came after nearly 15 hours of
negotiations that followed an almost 24-hour debate the previous day.
The two sides are set to hash out details in the coming days, which
could change the shape of the final legislation.
"Europe has positioned itself as a pioneer, understanding the importance
of its role as a global standard setter. This is yes, I believe, a
historical day," European Commissioner Thierry Breton told a press
conference.
The accord requires foundation models such as ChatGPT and general
purpose AI systems (GPAI) to comply with transparency obligations before
they are put on the market. These include drawing up technical
documentation, complying with EU copyright law and disseminating
detailed summaries about the content used for training.
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High-impact foundation models with systemic risk will have to conduct
model evaluations, assess and mitigate systemic risks, conduct
adversarial testing, report to the European Commission on serious
incidents, ensure cybersecurity and report on their energy efficiency.
GPAIs with systemic risk may rely on codes of practice to comply with
the new regulation.
Governments can only use real-time biometric surveillance in public
spaces in cases of victims of certain crimes, prevention of genuine,
present, or foreseeable threats, such as terrorist attacks, and searches
for people suspected of the most serious crimes.
The agreement bans cognitive behavioral manipulation, the untargeted
scrapping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage, social
scoring and biometric categorization systems to infer political,
religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation and race.
Consumers would have the right to launch complaints and receive
meaningful explanations while fines for violations would range from 7.5
million euros ($8.1 million) or 1.5% of turnover to 35 million euros or
7% of global turnover.
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Artificial Intelligence words are seen in this illustration taken
March 31, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Business group DigitalEurope criticised the rules as yet another
burden for companies, on top of other recent legislation.
"We have a deal, but at what cost? We fully supported a risk-based
approach based on the uses of AI, not the technology itself, but the
last-minute attempt to regulate foundation models has turned this on
its head," its Director General Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl said.
Privacy rights group European Digital Rights was equally critical.
"It’s hard to be excited about a law which has, for the first time
in the EU, taken steps to legalize live public facial recognition
across the bloc," its senior policy advisor Ella Jakubowska said.
"Whilst the Parliament fought hard to limit the damage, the overall
package on biometric surveillance and profiling is at best
lukewarm."
The legislation is expected to enter into force early next year once
both sides formally ratify it and should apply two years after that.
Governments around the world are seeking to balance the advantages
of the technology, which can engage in human-like conversations,
answer questions and write computer code, against the need to put
guardrails in place.
Europe's ambitious AI rules come as companies like OpenAI, in which
Microsoft is an investor, continue to discover new uses for their
technology, triggering both plaudits and concerns. Google owner
Alphabet on Thursday launched a new AI model, Gemini, to rival
OpenAI.
The EU law could become the blueprint for other governments and an
alternative to the United States' light-touch approach and China's
interim rules.
($1 = 0.9293 euros)
(Writing by Josephine Mason; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Stephen
Coates)
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