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IT FINALLY HAPPENED! THE AI ACT HAS JUST PASSED!
Today marked the last big milestone for the AI Act. Following today’s EU Parliament vote, the Act will undergo final linguistic approval by lawyer-linguists in April, a step considered a formality, before being published in the Official Journal. It will then come into effect after 21 days, with prohibited systems provisions in force six months later, by the end of 2024. Other provisions will come in over the next 2-3 years.
The AI Act imposes significant penalties for non-compliance with the prohibited systems provisions, with fines up to €35 million or 7% of global turnover. What’s the message? Make sure you aren’t providing or using prohibited AI systems in the EU by the end of the year.
The following will be prohibited AI systems under the AI Act by year end:
Manipulative and Deceptive Practices:
AI systems that use subliminal techniques to materially distort a person’s decision-making capacity, leading to significant harm, are banned. This includes systems that manipulate behavior or decisions in a way that the individual would not have otherwise made.
Exploitation of Vulnerabilities:
The Act prohibits AI systems that target individuals or groups based on age, disability, or socio-economic status to distort behavior in harmful ways.
Biometric Categorization:
It outlaws AI systems that categorize individuals based on biometric data to infer sensitive information like race, political opinions, or sexual orientation. This prohibition does not cover any labelling or filtering of lawfully acquired biometric datasets, such as images. There are also exceptions for law enforcement.
Social Scoring:
AI systems designed to evaluate individuals or groups over time based on their social behavior or predicted personal characteristics, leading to detrimental treatment, are banned.
Real-time Biometric Identification:
The use of real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement is heavily restricted, with allowances only under narrowly defined circumstances that require judicial or independent administrative approval.
Risk Assessment in Criminal Offences:
The Act forbids AI systems that assess the risk of individuals committing criminal offences based solely on profiling, except when supporting human assessment already based on factual evidence.
Facial Recognition Databases:
AI systems that create or expand facial recognition databases through untargeted scraping of images are prohibited.
Emotion Inference in Workplaces and Educational Institutions:
The use of AI to infer emotions in sensitive environments like workplaces and schools is banned, barring exceptions for medical or safety reasons.
The Act mandates prior authorization for the use of ‘real-time’ remote biometric identification systems by law enforcement.
Things have just got very real!
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