The EU AI Act Newsletter #1
31/01/22-15/02/22
Welcome to the EU AI Act Newsletter, a biweekly newsletter by the Future of Life Institute providing you up-to-date developments and analyses of the proposed EU artificial intelligence law.
Processes
In April last year, the European Commission published its ambitious proposal to regulate AI. The regulation was meant to be the first of its kind, but the progress has been slow so far due to the file's technical, political and juridical complexity.
What are the roles of the JURI, LIBE, ITRE and IMCO committees of the European Parliament in the AI Act? After months-long conflict of competences among committees, it was eventually resolved by a political deal in the Conference of Presidents between S&D and Renew on 1 December.
Analyses
Irish Council for Civil Liberties suggests four amendments to strengthen ex-post enforcement in the draft EU AI Act. They state that the Commission itself has noted that enforcement will be challenging because AI is not transparent.
Here’s a blog post recommending businesses to embrace the opportunity the AI Act provides to build commercially ethical AI systems that allow for competitive advantage, while protecting society against potential harm.
The European Commission published a new Standardisation Strategy which among other things outlines a renewed commitment to engage in the definition of technological standards for emerging technologies. Here's an analysis of the Standardisation Strategy and its importance for the AI Act:
The European Commission's original proposal set up some prohibitions on AI manipulation to which the Slovenian EU presidency has since made many suggestions. An op-ed makes further recommendations on prohibiting manipulation.
Another blog post argues that the AI Act is not sufficient to address the risk of AI manipulation because it only prohibits manipulation that raises the possibility of physical or psychological harm.