EU’s AI Act Passes Last Big Hurdle to Adoption

The European Union’s AI Act, a risk-based plan for regulating applications of artificial intelligence, has passed what looks to be the final big hurdle standing in the way of adoption after Member State representatives today voted to confirm the final text of the draft law. The development follows the political agreement reached in December — clinched after marathon ‘final’ three-way talks between EU co-legislators which stretched over several days. The work to turn agreed positions on scrappy negotiation sheets into a final compromise text for lawmakers approval kicked off — culminating in today’s Coreper vote affirming the draft rules. The planned regulation sets out a list of prohibited uses of AI (aka unacceptable risk), such as using AI for social scoring; brings in some governance rules for high risk uses (where AI apps might harm health, safety, fundamental rights, environment, democracy and the rule of law).