According to a report on Friday, European Union policymakers agreed on Saturday to a sweeping new law to regulate AI. But will it make a difference?

According to The New York Times (E.U. Agrees on Landmark Artificial Intelligence Rules, written by Adam Satariano and available here), the law, called the A.I. Act, sets a new global benchmark for countries seeking to harness the potential benefits of the technology, while trying to protect against its possible risks, like automating jobs, spreading misinformation online and endangering national security. The law still needs to go through a few final steps for approval, but the political agreement means its key outlines have been set.

European policymakers focused on A.I.’s riskiest uses by companies and governments, including those for law enforcement and the operation of crucial services like water and energy. Makers of the largest general-purpose A.I. systems, like those powering the ChatGPT chatbot, would face new transparency requirements. Chatbots and software that creates manipulated images such as “deepfakes” would have to make clear that what people were seeing was generated by A.I., according to E.U. officials and earlier drafts of the law.

Use of facial recognition software by police and governments would be restricted outside of certain safety and national security exemptions. Companies that violated the regulations could face fines of up to 7 percent of global sales.

According to a release from the Council of the European Union, the main new elements of the provisional agreement are as follows:

• rules on high-impact general-purpose AI models that can cause systemic risk in the future, as well as on high-risk AI systems
• a revised system of governance with some enforcement powers at EU level
• extension of the list of prohibitions but with the possibility to use remote biometric identification by law enforcement authorities in public spaces, subject to safeguards
• better protection of rights through the obligation for deployers of high-risk AI systems to conduct a fundamental rights impact assessment prior to putting an AI system into use.

Yet even as the law was hailed as a regulatory breakthrough, questions remained about how effective it would be. Many aspects of the policy were not expected to take effect for 12 to 24 months, a considerable length of time for AI development. And up until the last minute of negotiations, policymakers and countries were fighting over its language and how to balance the fostering of innovation with the need to safeguard against possible harm.

The deal reached in Brussels took three days of negotiations, including an initial 22-hour session that began Wednesday afternoon and dragged into Thursday. The final agreement was not immediately public as talks were expected to continue behind the scenes to complete technical details, which could delay final passage. Votes must be held in Parliament and the European Council, which comprises representatives from the 27 countries in the union.

European Union policymakers have been working on an AI Act for over 2 1/2 years now (we covered it back in April of 2021), so it’s taken quite a while to get this far and keeping up with the pace of AI development has been challenging. Where will AI development be in 12 to 24 months and will the AI Act be obsolete before it ever takes effect? We’ll see.

Hat tip to Kelly Twigger (again!) via Kevin O’Keefe’s terrific blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs here.

So, what do you think? Is this a breakthrough for European Union policymakers, or just a band-aid on a gushing wound? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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