The EU AI Act divides the technology into four categories of risk ranging from ‘unacceptable to high, medium and low risk.
After passing final checks, the legislation is expected to come into force in May after it was endorsed by the EU Parliament with 523 votes for versus 46 against.
Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for Internal Market wrote on Twitter: “I welcome the overwhelming support from the European Parliament for our AI Act – the world’s 1st comprehensive, binding rules for trusted AI.
“Europe is NOW a global standard-setter in AI.
“We are regulating as little as possible – but as much as needed”.
🇪🇺 Democracy: 2⃣ | Lobby: 0️⃣
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) March 13, 2024
I welcome the overwhelming support from European Parliament for our #MediaFreedomAct
An important step to protect our information space & fight #disinformation.
It will strengthen #independent media as vigilant guardians of our democratic values. pic.twitter.com/Dw13s23u8a
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Neil Thacker, CISO EMEA at Netskope said: “Next up, the European Council will need to approve but it’s now inevitable this Act will become law in the near future.”
Thacker previously stated that with the growing presence of AI in all aspects of daily life, the question of legal frameworks has become “urgent and necessary” in order to regulate its uses of data.
“However, it is essential that this is done with precise and transparent legal precepts that evolve with the technologies so that we strike the right balance of enabling innovation while respecting ethical principles,” he said.
“Informed decision-making is crucial to implementing AI that is ethical and meets the requirements of the new law. Knowing and documenting the use of both machine learning and AI systems within an organisation is a simple way to understand and anticipate vulnerabilities to business-critical data, while ensuring responsible use of Al."
Flavia Colombo, EMEA VP of sales at HubSpot says that as a result of the act, we’ll now have clear guardrails in place to ensure [AI] is being used ethically.
Colombo believes businesses will feel safer knowing the risks have been considered by policymakers and this will help encourage more widespread communication about current limitations and benefits. As a result, better real-life AI use cases can be implemented faster.
“But we should be wary of regulation that doesn’t keep pace with constantly evolving technology. Things are changing every day - at some point, the curve will flatten out, but until then legislation should be flexible enough to complement these advances.”
