The EU Council has given final approval to the bloc's landmark AI Act, setting the stage for enactment of a benchmark first-of-its-kind AI law across Europe.the AI Act as taking a"risk-based approach" to AI regulation, meaning that the greater the risk an AI product could harm society, the more regulations it'll have to follow in order to do business in the EU.
"With the AI act, Europe emphasizes the importance of trust, transparency and accountability when dealing with new technologies while at the same time ensuring this fast-changing technology can flourish and boost European innovation," said Belgian secretary of state for digitization, Mathieu Michel. While Europe touts its world-first law, The UK and the Republic of Korea said they've managed to get Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Meta and others to agree to the Frontier AI Safety. The agreement would require AI companies to properly assess the risks inherent in their latest models and to not publish them if the risk of misuse is too great.
"Cognitive behavioural manipulation and social scoring will be banned from the EU because their risk is deemed unacceptable," the Commission said."The law also prohibits the use of AI for predictive policing based on profiling and systems that use biometric data to categorise people according to specific categories such as race, religion, or sexual orientation."