The EU to the AI Rescue (Again)

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Leading the Way in Compliance and Regulations — Thankfully

The Artificial Intelligence Act of 2021, released by the European Union, is an incredible moment we should not take lightly. Like the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR), the EU continues to demonstrate the willingness and fortitude to create legislation with clear and concise enforcement elements.

Many US-based regulations continue to be self-enforced and often need more actual enforcement or mandates for compliance. On the surface, the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act is designed to help protect students’ privacy. Yet, most that follow this often are reminded that the act is self-governed by the Department of Education and carries several exemptions, including medical disclosers and notifications.

The AI-ACT carries several critical components, including products containing AI will need to clear an assessment of its capabilities before being allowed within the EU.

Why this seems a bit harmful, most would agree that AI, if gone unchecked and unregulated, will continue to morph into something that very few people will have the means to stop. The idea of AI continuing to learn through access to more public and potentially private data domain information combined with deep learning, easier could become a force without any means to prevent disaster from happening.

What the EU has done is provide an initial guardrail around AI, requiring medical device companies, technology providers, and other entities to explain their AI capabilities and the impact on the privacy of others, how decisions made within AI will have an effect on the society, and what are steps within the AI that will provide safeguards.

The EU is banning practices that deploy AI to manipulate or exploit people’s vulnerabilities which may result in physical or psychological harm. The law helps drop indiscriminate use of real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces for law enforcement or the use of AI-social scores by authorities to unfairly disadvantage individuals or groups.

I applaud the EU for their actions. In the rest of the world, “greed” continues to take center stage in the battle for whose AI is better and what impact this capability will have on the bottom line. We are already seeing large companies replace jobs with AI to improve their bottom line.

There is no doubt that AI will change the world. However, thanks to the EU, this disruptive technology may become less destructive in our time.