EU agrees ‘historic’ deal with world’s first laws to regulate AI | European Union #agrees #historic #deal #worlds #laws #regulate #European #Union

The world’s first comprehensive laws to regulate artificial intelligence have been agreed in a landmark deal after a marathon 37-hour negotiation between the European Parliament and EU member states.

The agreement was described as “historic” by Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner responsible for a suite of laws in Europe that will also govern social media and search engines, covering giants such as X, TikTok and Google.

The agreement puts the EU ahead of the US, China and the UK in the race to regulate artificial intelligence and protect the public from risks that include potential threat to life that many fear the rapidly developing technology carries.

Officials provided few details on what exactly will make it into the eventual law, which would not take effect until 2025 at the earliest.

The political agreement between the European Parliament and EU member states on new laws to regulate AI was a hard fought battle with clashes over foundation models designed for general rather than specific purposes.

But there were also a protracted negotiations over AI-driven surveillance, which could be used by the police, employers or retailers to film members of the public in real-time and recognise emotional stress.

Dragoș Tudorache, the Romanian MEP who has led the European Parliament’s four-year battle to regulate AI, said: “We are the first in the world to set in place real regulation for #AI, and for the future digital world driven by AI, guiding the development and evolution of this technology in a human-centric direction.”

Previously he has said that the EU was determined not to make the mistakes of the past, when tech giants such as Facebook were allowed to grew into multi-billion dollar corporations with no obligation to regulation content on their platforms including interference in elections, child sex abuse and hate speech.

Strong and comprehensive regulation from the EU could “set a powerful example for many governments considering regulation,” said Anu Bradford, a Columbia Law School professor who is an expert on the EU and digital regulation. Other countries “may not copy every provision but will likely emulate many aspects of it”.

AI companies who will have to obey the EU’s rules will also likely extend some of those obligations to markets outside the continent, Bradford told the AP. “After all, it is not efficient to re-train separate models for different markets,” she said.