Regulations On A European Approach For Artificial Intelligence
One of the Brexit bonuses we’ve been enjoying since January 1st is that we have abandoned our influence within the world’s regulatory superpower. America and China may have industrial and military dominance, but by placing a decent proportion of global economic activity under the world’s strongest regulatory regime, the EU forces the pace for everyone else. GDPR commands respect around the world. So when the draft «Regulation On A European Approach For Artificial Intelligence» leaked earlier this week, it made quite the splash — and not just because it’s the size of a novella. It goes to town on AI just as fiercely as GDPR did on data, proposing chains of responsibility, defining «high risk AI» that gets the full force of the regs, proposing multi-million euro fines for non-compliance, and defining a whole set of harmful behaviours and limits to what AI can do with individuals and in general. What it does not do is define AI, saying that the technology is changing so rapidly it makes sense only to regulate what it does, not what it is. So yes, chatbots are included, even though you can write a simple one in a few lines of ZX Spectrum BASIC. In general, if it’s sold as AI, it’s going to get treated like AI. That’ll make marketing think twice. For businesses who implement, buy in or plan to use AI, this will sound like the worst sort of bureaucratic overreach, imposing all sorts of brakes and costs on the latest and greatest tools. Imagine having to implement GDPR all over again, only this time for something that the regulator won’t even bother to define and which the salespeople say will touch every aspect of line of business operation.
