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The EU lawmakers spearheading the work on the EU’s AI bill have circulated a new version of the provisions regarding the classification of high-risk AI systems, maintaining the filter-based approach despite a contrary legal opinion.

The AI Act is a landmark EU legislation to regulate Artificial Intelligence following a risk-based approach. At the heart of the law is a stricter regime for AI systems that pose a significant risk to people’s health, safety and fundamental rights, which must comply with tight requirements regarding risk management and data governance.

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EU policymakers have been discussing some filter conditions that would enable AI developers to avoid complying with the EU Artificial Intelligence’s law stricter regime. But this political compromise is running into significant legal troubles.

The AI Act is an EU landmark legislation to regulate Artificial Intelligence based on its capacity to cause harm. As such, the law follows a risk-based approach whereby AI models posing a significant risk to people’s health, safety and fundamental rights must comply with a stricter regime on aspects such as data governance and risk management.

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The negotiators of the EU’s artificial intelligence regulation should strengthen and empower the regulators. Otherwise, the enforcement of this regulation will be a struggle, writes Kris Shrishak.

Kris Shrishak is a Senior Fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, where he works on technology policy with a focus on algorithmic decision-making, surveillance, data rights, and privacy.

Imagine you have been handed the responsibility to be a key regulator for the first cross-sectoral AI regulation in the world. Now imagine that you are given scarce resources and your hands are tied.

This unenviable scenario could be the reality of future regulators of the EU’s AI Act.

The EU prides itself on having the “Brussels effect”. At the same time, it is working to produce a law that large tech companies would happily welcome and lobby to dilute further.

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The EU approach to powerful AI models is taking shape as European countries discuss possible concessions in the upcoming negotiations on the world’s first comprehensive Artificial Intelligence (AI) rulebook.

The Spanish presidency of the EU Council of Ministers shared on Tuesday (17 October) a document in preparation for the next political negotiation with the European Parliament and Commission on 24 October, the so-called trilogues.

The document, seen by Euractiv, details a series of possible landing zones on the AI Act, a flagship legislative proposal to regulate AI based on its capacity to cause harm. The compromises concern critical areas of the text, including how to deal with foundation models, large machine-learning models trained on vast data sets that generate responses based on a specific stimulus.

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The European Commission adopted on Wednesday (18 October) a recommendation calling on member states to speed up the establishment of authorities to deal with illegal online content and bolster their incident response coordination.

Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton announced the initiative at the European Parliament during the plenary session in Strasbourg, making the case for the need to ramp up the fight against the dissemination of illegal content in times of conflict.

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The Spanish presidency circulated three discussion papers on Friday (13 October) to gather EU countries’ feedback on key aspects of the AI law ahead of an upcoming negotiation session: fundamental rights, sustainability obligations and workplace decision-making.

The AI Act is a landmark legislative proposal to regulate Artificial Intelligence based on its potential to cause harm. Since they took over the presidency of the EU Council of Ministers, the Spaniards have prioritised closing the negotiations on the file with the European Parliament and Commission.

The Telecom Working Party, a technical body of the Council, will discuss possible flexibility to accord to the lead negotiators on Tuesday and Thursday. On Friday, the file will land on the table of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, with the view of providing a revised negotiating mandate for the next political trilogue with the other EU institutions on 25 October.

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The Commission launched today a stakeholder survey on draft International Guiding Principles for organisations developing advanced AI systems, which have been agreed by G7 ministers for stakeholder consultation. graphic showing a human hand holding a hexagone with AI written in the middle iStock photo Getty Images plus These principles are currently developed by G7 Members under the Hiroshima Artificial Intelligence process to set up guardrails on a global level. The eleven draft guiding principles, which cover advanced AI systems such as foundational models and generative AI, aim to promote safety and trustworthiness of the technology. On this basis, G7 members aim to compile a Code of Conduct that will provide guidance for organisations developing AI tools.

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EDPS Opinion 42/2023 on the Proposal for two Directives on AI liability rules

In response to growing threats to media freedom and the industry’s viability, MEPs adopted their position on a law to strengthen the transparency and independence of EU media.

In its position on the European Media Freedom Act, adopted by 448 votes in favour, 102 against and 75 abstentions on Tuesday, Parliament wants to oblige member states to ensure media plurality and protect media independence from governmental, political, economic or private interference.

MEPs want to ban all forms of interference in the editorial decisions of media outlets and prevent external pressure being exerted on journalists, such as forcing them to disclose their sources, accessing encrypted content on their devices, or targeting them with spyware.

The use of spyware may only be justified, MEPs argue, as a ‘last resort’ measure, on a case-by-case basis, and if ordered by an independent judicial authority to investigate a serious crime, such as terrorism or human trafficking.

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The new trade instrument is primarily meant as a deterrent, but it will allow the EU to fight economic coercion and respond with its own countermeasures.

With 578 votes to 24 and 19 abstentions. Parliament approved on Tuesday a new trade instrument to enable the EU to respond, in line with international law and as a last resort, should the EU or member states face economic blackmail from a foreign country seeking to influence a specific policy or stance.

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On those grounds,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE GENERAL COURT

hereby orders:

1. Operation of the decision of the European Commission of 25 April 2023, with reference C(2023) 2746 final, designating Amazon Store as a very large online platform in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act), is suspended in so far as, by virtue of that decision, Amazon Store will be required to make an advertisement repository publicly available, in accordance with Article 39 of that regulation, without prejudice to the requirement for the applicant to compile the advertisement repository.
2. The application for interim measures is dismissed as to the remainder.
3. The costs are reserved.

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The Commission has launched the DSA Transparency Database, putting in action one of the many ground-breaking transparency features mandated by the DSA.

Under the DSA, all providers of hosting services are required to provide users with clear and specific information, so-called statements of reasons, whenever they remove or restrict access to certain content. The new database will collect these statements of reasons in accordance with Article 24(5) of the DSA. This makes this database a first-of-its-kind regulatory repository, where data on content moderation decisions taken by providers of online platforms active in the EU are accessible to the general public at an unprecedented scale and granularity, enabling more online accountability.

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