Login | September 18, 2024
EU AI law goes into effect
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: September 6, 2024
The European Union’s new Artificial Intelligence regulations went into effect on Aug. 1, causing both Google and Apple to throw conniption fits (“How dare you regulate us? We will never do business in Europe again!” or something similar.).
But really, if you read the law, it isn’t all that bad for Big Tech.
Maybe they should have lawyers or something.
Probably the biggest news out of these regs is that generative AI like Chat GPT or Google’s Gemini isn’t particularly regulated, as it falls into the “low risk” category.
As general-purpose models “capable of generating text, images, and other content” that present “unique innovation opportunities” for the general public, they also present “challenges to artists, authors, and other creators and the way their creative content is created, distributed, used and consumed.”
They are therefore strictly regulated in terms of copyright law, routine testing and cybersecurity.
Open-source AI, like Meta’s Llama models, also fall under the same regulations with some exceptions for developers that make parameters publicly available and allow for “access, usage, modification, and distribution of the model.”
What the new regulations are really going after is AI models of predictability, which are labeled “high risk.”
These are used for cognitive behavioral manipulation, biometrics, and social scoring, including use in human resources (especially in hiring practices) and policing (facial recognition, etc.).
These are banned in the EU. They are not banned or even regulated in the US.
Penalties are strictly economic, similar to the GDPR, and based on a percentage of gross sales or a specified amount of money (whichever is higher).
Fines can range from 35 million euro ($38 million) or 7% of global turnover, to 7.5 million euro ($8.1 million) or 1% of turnover.
The fines are proportional for small to medium-size enterprises and startups.
Thanks to the folks at Quartz for the analysis.