The European Commission published its draft AI Regulation on
21st April 2021. The proposals are far-reaching. The
regulation won't form part of UK law, of course, but it does
have extra-territorial effect and it will be influential. Here are
five things you should know.
- Some AI will be banned.
The draft regulation is 'risk-based': the greater the
risk posed by an AI system, the stricter the rules. This is shown
in Figure 1 (taken from the Commission's accompanying
literature1).
Figure 1 The draft AI Regulation takes a
'risk-based' approach.
At the top of the pyramid is a limited category of AI practices
which pose an 'unacceptable risk'. These are banned. At a
high-level the banned categories are:
