EU countries agree on rules for artificial intelligence – heavy penalties are threatened

For the first time, EU countries have laid down comprehensive rules for the use of artificial intelligence (AI). The Council of EU states announced Tuesday’s decision to ensure AI systems are safe and respect fundamental rights.

At the same time, innovation should be promoted, it said. “The EU is well on its way to establishing the world’s first binding standard for trustworthy AI,” said German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann.

However, Buschmann sees a need for improvement, for example in ensuring anonymity in public space and transparency when using AI systems. Before the new rules actually come into force, EU states must once again agree on a line with the European Parliament.

The European Commission proposed the law in April 2021 with the aim of setting global standards. The higher the potential hazards of an application, the higher the requirements should be.

It carries high penalties

There are heavy penalties for breaking the rules. Above all, the authority wants to create the basis on which users can trust AI applications.

Artificial intelligence usually refers to machine learning applications, where software sifts through large amounts of data for matches and draws conclusions from it. They are already used in many areas.

For example, such programs can evaluate images from computed tomographs faster and more accurately than humans. Self-driving cars also try to predict the behavior of other road users in this way. And chatbots or automatic playlists from streaming services also work with AI.

The EU consumer association Beuc complained that the decision by EU states left too many important questions unanswered, such as facial recognition by private companies in public places. In addition, provisions that classify systems as high-risk have been weakened. (saw/sda/awp/dpa)