The European Council has adopted a common position on the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act, aimed at ensuring that AI systems placed on the EU market respect fundamental rights and Union values. The draft regulation promotes investment and innovation in AI and facilitates the development of a single market for AI applications.
The text narrows down the definition of AI systems, extends the prohibition on using AI for social scoring to private actors, and prohibits the use of AI systems that exploit the vulnerabilities of a specific group of persons. It also clarifies the allocation of responsibilities and roles of various actors in AI value chains.
The provisions related to market surveillance have been simplified, and penalties for infringements of the provisions of the AI Act provide for more proportionate caps on administrative fines for SMEs and start-ups. Measures in support of innovation have been modified, including allowing unsupervised real-world testing of AI systems under specific conditions and safeguards.
The aim is to create a legal framework that promotes innovation while ensuring the safe and lawful development and uptake of AI across the EU. The adoption of the general approach will allow negotiations with the European Parliament to reach an agreement on the proposed regulation.
Next steps
“The adoption of the general approach will allow the Council to enter negotiations with the European Parliament (‘trilogues’) once the latter adopts its own position with a view to reaching an agreement on the proposed regulation.”
Source and more information: Council of the EU – press release
