What does the AI Act mean for digital rights in the EU?

BRUSSELS - Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly transforming our daily lives, from homes to transport, culture to policing. However, experts warn that this growth has come at a significant cost, including the loss of privacy, the entrenchment of societal biases, and the creation of opaque systems that lack accountability. In response, EU lawmakers have developed the AI Act, a groundbreaking piece of EU legislation that will classify various AI tools according to their perceived level of risk, which is set to be voted on in June.

SARAH CHANDER - senior policy adviser, European Digital Rights (EDRi):

According to five tech experts we spoke to, digital rights are at stake if the EU AI Act fails to address critical issues. For example, Sarah Chander, senior policy advisor at the European Digital Rights (EDRi), highlights that AI systems are currently used to surveil and identify individuals in public spaces, assess them for the risk of committing crimes and welfare fraud, facilitate illegal push-backs at borders, and enable discriminatory decisions in access to education and employment. Therefore, bans are necessary for the most harmful uses of AI systems, including predictive policing, and a complete ban on remote biometric identification in public spaces, such as facial recognition.

VICTORIA ADELMANT - director of the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights Project, New York University:

Moreover, accountability and transparency are essential when using high-risk AI systems to ensure that the public is aware of these uses and how they will be affected. Victoria Adelmant, Director of the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights Project at New York University, warns that law enforcement carve-outs are problematic because it's where one of the most significant and problematic uses of this technology occurs. The EU has the opportunity to set the global standard, building on its past efforts with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

VIRGINIA DIGNUM - professor in responsible artificial intelligence, Umea University, Sweden:

The main challenge, according to Virginia Dignum, Professor in Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umea University in Sweden, is the difficulty of defining AI. Over-defining AI can lead organizations to replace some methods with others, just to be outside the scope of the Act, while under-defining it has the risk of being similar to trying to regulate "magic." The EU AI Act could have a positive impact on digital rights in Europe by establishing clear rules and standards for AI systems that prioritize transparency, accountability, and human oversight.

SEBASTIANO TOFFALETTI - secretary general at European DIGITAL SME Alliance:

However, Sebastiano Toffaletti, Secretary-General at the European Digital SME Alliance, warns that the EU AI Act could overburden SMEs with compliance costs, which would mean that the market would be dominated by large foreign companies, mainly from the US and China. Furthermore, the implementation and enforcement of these rules are crucial to ensuring that digital rights are protected in practice.

MARK BRAKEL - policy director, Future of Life Institute:

The speed of change is a significant challenge when it comes to regulating AI systems. According to Mark Brakel, Policy Director at Future of Life Institute, the list of high-risk applications under Annexe 3 in the AI Act needs to be kept up to date, and general-purpose systems such as large language models like ChatGPT will find their way into tens or hundreds of applications. Therefore, it's essential to capture these systems at the source and ensure that they adhere to the high-risk requirements set out in the AI Act.

ChatGPT - OpenAI's text generator:

The EU AI Act is likely to have a global impact since companies operating in other regions may need to comply with the regulation if they offer AI products or services in the EU. This means that the regulation could indirectly influence the development and deployment of AI systems globally. In conclusion, the EU AI Act has the potential to establish a level playing field for different organizations and encourage human-centric innovation. However, the EU must get the regulation right to prevent negative consequences.