European Parliament Endorses EU AI Act

On Wednesday 13 March 2024, MEPs of the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved the EU's Artificial Intelligence Regulation. Even though the regulation is still required to pass through the last few final hurdles, the European Parliament's approval signifies that the EU is ready to comprehensively regulate AI in the very near future.

The AI Act is a proposed EU regulation which adopts a risk-based framework to the regulation of AI systems. AI systems that are deemed to be seriously high-risk are outright banned from being placed on the EU market, while AI systems that are classified as high risk under the AI Act are subject to its most stringent rules and systems falling within the category of minimal risk are subject to lighter-touch regulation. The rules required to be followed by providers of high-risk systems include ensuring that the system is programmed to be able to automatically record events over its lifetime and allows for an element of human