EU Consumer Protection Committee Adopts Position on Legislation
Implementation Confirmed After Parliament, Commission, and Council Consultations... Ban on Biometric Surveillance and Emotion Analysis
The European Union (EU) is accelerating efforts to establish the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) regulatory law.
According to reports from AFP and others on the 11th (local time), the Consumer Protection Committee under the European Parliament adopted a position on a bill to regulate AI systems such as ChatGPT and Midjourney across the EU. This marks the committee's support for the bill two years after the EU Commission proposed the draft legislation for AI regulation. Accordingly, an official position at the parliamentary level is expected to be adopted at the plenary session next month. Following this, the implementation is anticipated to be confirmed once trilateral negotiations between the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council are concluded.
The adopted bill includes strengthened measures related to AI regulation. The Consumer Protection Committee added regulatory provisions banning functions such as biometric surveillance and user emotion analysis to the draft previously proposed by the Commission.
Generative AI like ChatGPT and Midjourney is classified into a separate category, and the bill includes enhanced transparency measures obliging users to be clearly informed that the content was created by a machine, not a human. Since the final stage of trilateral negotiations remains, there is a possibility that the bill's contents may be slightly modified during the negotiation process. If the bill is confirmed and implemented in the near future, it is expected to have a significant impact on the entire AI-related industry, as it will apply across all 27 EU member states.
Members of Parliament highly praised the Consumer Protection Committee's adoption of the position as "historic." They expressed hope that through swift follow-up procedures, this bill will become the world's first AI regulation.
Meanwhile, the information technology (IT) industry has voiced concerns about the EU's regulatory direction. They believe that excessive regulation could hinder technological innovation. The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), representing major European IT industries, stated that regulations should be designed to "ensure that useful AI tools can be developed."
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