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European Parliament adopts “historic” law on artificial intelligence

MEPs adopted rules on Wednesday to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) systems like ChatGPT, unique legislation at the global level.

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The European Parliament adopted rules on Wednesday to regulate artificial intelligence, legislation unique in the world.

The European Commissioner in charge of the file, Thierry Breton, welcomed on for reliable AI”.


This bill was presented by the European Commission in April 2021. The appearance at the end of 2022 of ChatGPT from the Californian start-up OpenAI, capable of writing essays, poems or translations in a few seconds, gave it a new dimension.

Read alsoOpenAI: mathematics still resists ChatGPT and AI

This system revealed the enormous potential of AI but also its risks. The dissemination of false photos or videos, larger than life, has thus alerted us to the danger of manipulation of opinion.

“Today is a historic day on our long road towards the regulation of AI,” the co-rapporteur of the text Brando Benifei (Social Democrats) declared to the press on Wednesday morning.

With this text, “we have managed to find a very fine balance between the interest in innovating and the interest in protecting”, added co-rapporteur Dragos Tudorache (Renew, centrists and liberals).

However, this legislation “is only the beginning”, he noted, stressing that artificial intelligence continues to evolve rapidly.

“We will have to be very attentive to this evolution of technology in the future and be ready to respond to the new challenges that could arise from it,” warned Dragos Tudorache.

Read alsoChatGPT: putting AI on pause, “an existential issue”?

The legislation provides for a two-tiered approach. “General purpose” AI models will have to comply with transparency obligations as well as European copyright rules.

As for systems considered “high risk” – used for example in critical infrastructure, education, human resources, law enforcement – ​​they will be subject to stricter requirements.

For example, they will have to provide for the establishment of a mandatory impact analysis on fundamental rights.

Artificially generated images, texts or videos (deep fakes) must be clearly identified as such.

The text also prohibits citizen rating or mass surveillance systems used in China, or even remote biometric identification of people in public places.

On this last point, States have however obtained exemptions for certain law enforcement missions such as the prevention of a terrorist threat or the targeted search for victims.

European legislation will be equipped with means of surveillance and sanctions with the creation of a European AI office, within the European Commission. It can impose fines ranging from 7.5 to 35 million euros, depending on the offense and the size of the company.

“We regulate as little as possible, but as much as necessary,” European Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote on X.

“Fuzzy rules”

But the tech world has been cautious. “Many of these new rules remain unclear and could slow down the development and deployment of innovative applications,” said Boniface de Champris, a Europe manager for the CCIA, a sector lobby.

For their part, the Multinational Observatory (France), Corporate Europe Observatory (Belgium) and LobbyControl (Germany) fear that lobbies will weaken the implementation of the rules surrounding AI.

“Many details of the AI ​​Act remain open and need to be clarified (…), for example regarding standards, thresholds or transparency obligations. The composition of the advisory board of the new European agency for AI also remains unclear,” they warned in a joint statement.

The 27 EU states are expected to approve the text in April before the law is published in the EU’s Official Journal in May or June.

With AFP

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