AI regulation: What the European Union has agreed to

The European Council and the EU Parliament's negotiators have reached an agreement on the rules to govern artificial intelligence (AI), under the AI Act. The Act aims to ensure that Al systems in the European market are safe and aligned with fundamental rights and EU values. We take a look at the broad provisions of the Act

The agreement

THE AI ACT aims to facilitate the uptake of safe and trustworthy Al across the EU's single market by both private and public actors. A risk-base approach-higher the risk, stricter the rules that will apply is its lodestone. The main elements of the provisional agreement reached by the EC and the European Parliament concern rules on high-impact, generalpurpose Al models that can cause systemic risk in the future, as well as on high-risk Al 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, and better protection of rights through the obligation for deployers of high-risk Al systems to conduct a fundamental rights impact assessment prior to use. The European Parliament will vote on the Al Act early next year. 

The scope of the Act