European Commission Proposes Legislation Regulating AI

On April 21, the European Commission (Commission) proposed legislation (EC Proposal) that would comprehensively regulate artificial intelligence systems in the European Union, including externally located systems with output used inside the EU.¹ The Commission simultaneously proposed updated legislation regulating machinery, which, among other changes, would address the integration of AI into machinery, consistent with the EC Proposal.² In the transportation sector, high-risk AI safety components, products or systems covered by eight existing legislative acts would be exempt from the proposal although those acts would be amended to take the proposal's requirements for high-risk systems into account.³ In the words of two commentators, "the heavy hand of the regulatory state has undoubtedly arrived in AI."⁴ This statement is a bit hyperbolic as the General Data Protection Regulation and other laws already restrict AI in various ways.⁵ Nevertheless, developers,