EU Artificial Intelligence Act: The Best Legislative Framework For AI
Maintaining artificial intelligence while ensuring data privacy is a challenging feat to do. While artificial intelligence holds a lot of promise, it also raises worries about data misuse and personal privacy breaches. AI must operate in a robust, secure, and safe manner, with risks constantly reviewed and addressed. Organizations that create AI must be accountable for ensuring that these systems operate in accordance with these principles. The EU Artificial intelligence Act has introduced a sophisticated ‘product safety framework’ built around a set of four risk categories.
Through a set of complementary, proportional, and adaptable rules, the Commission hopes to manage the risks posed by AI applications. These laws will also give Europe a leadership role in establishing the global gold standard. Before delving into the details of the act, it’s important to understand why artificial intelligence legislation is necessary. Here is the answer!
Why Are People So Concerned About AI?
In February 2020, the Commission launched a broad public consultation on concrete proposals for a European AI strategy, following the publication of the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence. The commission issued an Impact Assessment of the Artificial Intelligence Regulation, a supporting study, and a preliminary proposal. All of which received feedback from various parties. The Commission identified six major issues created by the development and usage of AI systems in its impact assessment.
To begin with, the usage of AI increases the dangers to citizens’ safety and security. Second, the deployment of AI increases the risk of violating people’s fundamental rights and values of the union. Third, authorities lack the authority, procedural structures, and resources necessary to enforce and monitor compliance. Fourth, the legal ambiguity and complexity around how existing rules apply to AI systems deter enterprises from implementing AI systems. Fifth, fear of AI would hinder AI research in Europe and impair the EU economy’s worldwide competitiveness. And last, fragmented policies obstruct cross-border trade.
With these risks in mind, it’s possible AI deployment could have a negative impact on the European Union. As a consequence, there could be a violation of fundamental rights and consumer protection. These risks could arise from errors in AI systems’ overall design or from the usage of data without bias correction. So, the committee decided to create a legal framework that can effectively address the aforementioned risks and situations.
What Does The EU Artificial Intelligence Act Entail?
AI offers a slew of economic and societal benefits to a variety of industries. They’re especially effective for enhancing forecasting, optimising operations and resource allocation, and customising services. However, the implications of AI systems for fundamental rights covered by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the threats to users’ safety when AI technologies are embedded in products and services, are causing alarm. AI systems, in particular, may threaten fundamental rights. Given the rapid advancement of these technologies, AI regulation has become a major policy issue in the EU in recent years.
With the publishing of its non-binding 2019 Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI and Policy and Investment Recommendations, the European Commission initially took a soft-law approach to this objective. However, with the publication of the Communication on Fostering a European Approach to Artificial Intelligence in 2021, the Commission changed to a legislative approach. This urged for the adoption of a new EU Artificial Intelligence Act.
The European Commission’s new AI proposal, published in April 2021, was the first attempt to develop a horizontal AI legislation. The suggested legal framework focuses on the specific use of AI systems and the hazards that come with them. The Commission proposes enshrining a technology-neutral definition of AI systems in EU law. There should also be a classification of AI systems with varying standards and obligations based on a risk-based approach. Some AI systems that pose unacceptable risks should be ban. A wide spectrum of high-risk AI systems would be permitted to get entry into the EU market. They would, however, be bound by a set of conditions and obligations. Those AI systems that pose just a low risk would be subjected to only the most minimal scrutiny.
Benefits That The EU Artificial Intelligence Act Brings
The proposed EU AI Act’s overall goal is to support the smooth operation of the single market by establishing conditions for the development and use of reliable AI systems within the Union. As a result, the proposed EU Artificial intelligence Act establishes a unified legal framework for the development, placement on the Union market, and usage of AI products and services. Furthermore, the EU AI Act proposal intends to fulfil a number of specific goals. It ensures that AI systems placed on the EU market are safe and comply with existing EU law, facilitates AI investment and innovation, and improves governance and effective enforcement of EU law on fundamental rights. It also prevents market fragmentation by facilitating the creation of a single market for lawful, safe, and trustworthy AI applications.
Conclusion
AI is a strategic technology with numerous benefits for citizens, businesses, and society as a whole, but it also comes with numerous issues that must be intelligently addressed. Europe must build and strengthen the essential industrial and technological capacities to fully exploit the prospects presented by AI. People should benefit from AI, and it should be a positive force in society. The new European guidelines, such as the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, aim to forever change the way AI is created. We, too, at Ksolves, help companies provide exceptional customer experiences and become smarter by ethically integrating AI into your products, business operations, tool development, and more. Being the top AI development company, we provide cutting-edge AI solutions based on trends and have experience in a variety of industries, making us a leading provider of AI implementation services.
