The European Union finally reached a provisional deal on the AI Act, a landmark set of rules and regulations meant to govern the development and deployment of artificial intelligence.

After a near 24-hour debate and 15 hours of deliberation, EU member countries and the European Parliament created the political agreement, which puts the EU one step closer to fully ratifying the EU AI Act in the laborious legislative process.

Member nations and the parliament are set to finalise some of the details in the coming days before it is fully ratified by the parliament and countries early next year, coming into force two years after that.

“Artificial intelligence is already changing our everyday lives. And this is just the beginning,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

“Used wisely and widely, AI promises huge benefits to our economy and society. Therefore, I very much welcome today’s political agreement by the European Parliament and the Council on the Artificial Intelligence Act.”

What’s In the AI Act?

The EU is taking a multi-faceted approach to AI regulation, rating risks and having specific rules for what they deem to be ‘general AI.’

Applications falling under minimal risk – including basic AI recommender systems or spam filters, will get a ‘free pass’ from specific obligations.

High risk applications, however, will be required to follow strict risk-mitigation regulations, such as using human oversight, keeping high quality data sets, and having a high level of accuracy and cybersecurity.

AI applications deemed high-risk include certain critical infrastructures, systems for recruiting, and those in law enforcement.

The EU has also listed certain applications as being of unacceptable risk, which are those considered a clear threat to the rights of people.

These include AI systems meant to manipulate behaviour, and those which enable social scoring. Some uses of biometric systems will also be banned.

Transparency will also be key to the regulations in an effort to ensure users are aware if AI is being used and if they are interacting with an AI machine rather than a human.

In terms of governance, the EU will create a new European AI Office within the EU Commission to ensure coordination of enforcement.

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This office would be empowered to issue fines from €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover (whichever is higher) for violations of banned AI applications, €15 million or 3% for violations of other obligations and €7.5 million or 1.5% for supplying incorrect information.

“The EU’s AI Act is the first-ever comprehensive legal framework on Artificial Intelligence worldwide. So, this is a historic moment. The AI Act transposes European values to a new era,” von der Leyen continued.

“By focusing regulation on identifiable risks, today’s agreement will foster responsible innovation in Europe. By guaranteeing the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses, it will support the development, deployment and take-up of trustworthy AI in the EU.

“Our AI Act will make a substantial contribution to the development of global rules and principles for human-centric AI.”

However, not everyone is so excited about regulating AI.

Despite many AI developers causing for a halt in development earlier in the year to curb the risks of AI, over 150 people signed a letter against the EU’s AI Act, saying Europe risked being left behind if their regulation went too far.

Signatories included those from Meta and Renault, as well as Siemens in Germany, and Airbus in France, who wrote against the legislation.

It was also found that, despite its founder signing the initial letter against AI’s unhindered proliferation, OpenAI lobbied against the EU to stop their ChatGPT model from being classified as high-risk.

The EU AI Act should have developers fearful though – research from Stanford University found that no AI model so far would fully comply with the new EU regulations.