philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Europe’s world-first AI rules get final approval from lawmakers. Here’s what happens next

... “The AI Act has nudged the future of AI in a human-centric direction, in a direction where humans are in control of the technology and where it — the technology — helps us leverage new discoveries, economic growth, societal progress and unlock human potential," Dragos Tudorache, a Romanian lawmaker who was a co-leader of the Parliament negotiations on the draft law, said before the vote. ...

The riskier an AI application, the more scrutiny it faces. The vast majority of AI systems are expected to be low risk, such as content recommendation systems or spam filters. Companies can choose to follow voluntary requirements and codes of conduct. 

High-risk uses of AI, such as in medical devices or critical infrastructure like water or electrical networks, face tougher requirements like using high-quality data and providing clear information to users. 

Some AI uses are banned because they’re deemed to pose an unacceptable risk, like social scoring systems that govern how people behave, some types of predictive policing and emotion recognition systems in school and workplaces. ...

They added provisions for so-called generative AI models, the technology underpinning AI chatbot systems that can produce unique and seemingly lifelike responses, images and more. ...

In the U.S., President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on AI in October that’s expected to be backed up by legislation and global agreements. In the meantime, lawmakers in at least seven U.S. states are working on their own AI legislation. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping has proposed his Global AI Governance Initiative for fair and safe use of AI, and authorities have issued “ interim measures ” for managing generative AI, which applies to text, pictures, audio, video and other content generated for people inside China.

Other countries, from Brazil to Japan, as well as global groupings like the United Nations and Group of Seven industrialized nations, are moving to draw up AI guardrails. ...

When it comes to enforcement, each EU country will set up their own AI watchdog, where citizens can file a complaint if they think they've been the victim of a violation of the rules. Meanwhile, Brussels will create an AI Office tasked with enforcing and supervising the law for general purpose AI systems. 

Violations of the AI Act could draw fines of up to 35 million euros ($38 million), or 7% of a company’s global revenue. 

See the full story here: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/europes-world-ai-rules-set-final-approval-108072010