European Parliament gives final green light to historic law to regulate artificial intelligence in the EU

This Wednesday, the European Parliament approved what it classified as a “historic law” to regulate artificial intelligence in the European Union (EU), the first legislation worldwide for this technology, to safeguard fundamental rights in the community space.

In a final vote taken at the plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg, the European assembly approved the new legislation with 523 votes in favor, 46 against and 49 abstentions.

Stressing that the new law “guarantees security and respect for fundamental rights, while at the same time boosting innovation”, the institution indicates in a statement that safeguards for democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability are at stake, particularly in the face of artificial intelligence ( IA) high risk.

The regulation therefore establishes a series of obligations for AI based on its potential risks and level of impact, stipulating the prohibition of certain applications, limitations on the use of biometric identification systems by law enforcement authorities, exemptions applicable to the law , obligations for high-risk systems and transparency requirements.

Furthermore, the idea is to make the EU a “sector leader” in AI, which is why measures are planned to support innovation and small and medium-sized companies, according to the European Parliament (EP).

This Wednesday’s approval came after a provisional agreement, reached in mid-December last and after several hours of discussion, between the EU’s co-legislators – the Council and the EP – on the world’s first rules for AI.

Since June, co-legislators (Member States and MEPs) have been negotiating the first community rules so that technologies that use AI safeguard the EU’s fundamental values ​​and rights and the safety of users, forcing systems considered high risk to comply with requirements mandatory requirements related to their reliability, following a proposal from the European Commission presented in 2021.

This will therefore be the first regulation aimed at AI, although the creators and those responsible for developing this technology are already subject to European legislation on fundamental rights, consumer protection and security rules.

Additional requirements are expected to be introduced to address the risks, such as the existence of human supervision or the obligation to provide clear information about the capabilities and limitations of artificial intelligence.

AI has been increasingly used in areas such as entertainment (content personalization), online commerce (predicting consumer tastes), household appliances (intelligent programming) and electronic equipment (using virtual assistants such as Siri or Alexa, among others).

The European Commission has tried to strengthen cooperation between Member States regarding AI, but there is still no common legal framework, so the objective is to move from a voluntary approach to the regulatory sphere.