A law on artificial intelligence (AI) came into force in the EU on Thursday, the European Commission notified. The new law should both encourage the development of AI in the EU and ensure the protection of basic human rights.
The law categorises all AI-based systems and tools into risk levels ranging from low to unacceptable. It includes a ban on the use of facial recognition and other real-time “remote biometric identification” systems in public places, as well as emotion recognition systems. It will also ban the use of predictive analytics systems by the police to prevent offences, etc. The law also regulates generative AI (such as ChatGPT) and “high-risk AI-based systems,” among them unmanned cars and medical devices, quite strictly.
The timeline for implementing the new regulations varies. Most rules must be implemented by August 2026, but for high-risk AI systems affecting critical areas – employment, healthcare, justice – the deadline has been extended to August 2027.
Thierry Breton, Brussels’ self-proclaimed “digital enforcer,” wrote on X’s website, celebrating the start of the law and calling the EU a “pioneer” in its implementation.
Others were less solemn, comparing the decision to regulate the industry to the way it was once decided to ban plastic bottles from having easily removable caps. One user wrote in response to Breton’s comments:
I am sure, every AI entrepreneur will be happy to explain [to] a German EU bureaucrat — who literally does not know how email works — how their AI fulfils the regulation. First question: Do you ship your “AI” on CD, Floppy or DVD?
The introduction of the rules came against a backdrop of many EU countries trying to abandon fax machines, which have been in use in some form since the mid-1960s.
Regional governments in Germany have found it particularly difficult to abandon the technology.
As the EU enacted its regulation on artificial intelligence, the government of Bavaria announced significant progress in its bid to become the first state in Germany to abandon the use of fax machines in administrative work. The region’s digital minister Fabian Mehring said on August 1:
[We have] sent half of the digital fax dinosaurs to the museum.
He added that the move would help “speed up administrative processes, reduce bureaucracy and enable the use of artificial intelligence.”
