Deal Done on Europe’s AI Act- Landmark Regulation for Artificial Intelligence

Lead lawmaker for the drafting of the EU’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, MEP Deirdre Clune has welcomed the political agreement by the European Parliament and the Council on the Artificial Intelligence Act which was struck at midnight last Friday (8 Dec).

Speaking from Strasbourg ahead of the upcoming plenary session, MEP Clune said:

“This is a historic moment and marks the end of almost two years of negotiation. AI regulation is necessary and it is vital to protect people’s privacy. Through putting guardrails in place for foundation models such as ChatGPT in Europe, we are aiming to set a global standard for AI regulation.

“The most pressing matter during the negotiations was to ensure that clear rules for artificial intelligence applications are put in place, without frightening developers out of the market”, MEP Clune added.

The EU’s AI Act is the first-ever comprehensive legal framework on Artificial Intelligence worldwide. The final deliberation lasted almost 36 hours over the course of three days, which set a new record for interinstitutional negotiations.

“AI offers immense potential in a digital society and economy, not to mention that it offers enormous, untapped opportunity to continue delivering tremendous benefits in healthcare. But it is vitally important that the rules governing AI must be human centric, risk-based and balanced”, MEP Clune continued.

“What we have agreed in principle is to an AI Act that follows a risk-based approach whereby the AI models that can pose a significant risk to people’s health, safety and fundamental rights must comply with strict obligations, such as risk management and data governance.

“By guaranteeing the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses, the Act will support the human-centric, transparent and responsible development, deployment and take-up of AI in the EU.

“We must find a balance between regulating and promoting new technologies”, Clune concluded.