Europe’s AI Act has some good ideas around transparency, but it’s currently too complex for its own good.
Regulate.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images AsiaPacLionel Laurent
America innovates, Europe regulates. Just as the world is starting to come to grips with OpenAI, whose boss Sam Altman has both leapfrogged the competition and pleaded for global rules, the European Union has responded with the Artificial Intelligence Act, its own bid for AI superpower status by being the first to set minimum standards. It faces a European Parliament vote on Wednesday.
Yet we’re a long way from the deceptively simple world of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, which saw sentient machines deliver the benefits of powerful “positronic brains” with just three rules in place — don’t harm humans, obey humans, and defend your existence. AI is clearly too important to not regulate thoroughly, but the EU will have its work cut out to reduce the Act’s complexity while promoting innovation.
