EU May Delay Enforcement of AI Act

The EU was first out of the gate with a bloc-wide set of AI rules, beating the US and all other nations/regions to the punch on efforts to regulate AI. It had practice leading in the tech space: its privacy rules, which took effect in 2018, have led to copycat modern privacy rules all over the world and in many US states (the US has not enacted a comprehensive federal privacy law).  It took years, and marathon negotiations, for regulators across the region to agree on a framework of principles and rules.  

The bloc's AI rules are officially in effect, but the requirements of them are subject to a series of rolling implementation deadlines.  A key deadline relating to regulation of “general purpose” AI systems, set for August of this year, now appears to be in doubt.  Many factors Now, political turmoil and bureaucratic slow-down have opened the door to a potential delay in that deadline.  

WHY IT MATTERS

The EU's AI rules would be the first to apply to AI activity, and they impose an escalating series of regulations and prohibitions depending on the risk associated with specific uses of AI.  Some things deemed too harmful to human activity are prohibited entirely.  Others would be lightly regulated as low-risk.  Most commercial actions will likely fall in the middle of the risk scale, which could require that safety assurances, monitoring, disclosures to consumers, and reporting to regulators be put into place in varying degrees to account for the risk.  Even without the bulk of the rules having taken effect yet (deadlines are spread out from now through 2027), the underpinnings of the EU rules have spread and are informing the creation of best practices as other countries, and industry itself, look at how to handle AI.  Slowing the implementation of the rules introduces a risk that industry or others will try to negotiate lower regulatory burdens or looser deadlines.  Many advocates for the technology industry support such a rollback; advocates for human and civil rights are already expressing dismay at a potential slow-down or weakening of the regulation timeline.  From a practical perspective, the absence of a known set of rules creates quite a bit of uncertainty, which can make it difficult to navigate the business environment.