The EU wants to take big steps forward and introduce the world’s first law to regulate artificial intelligence. Germany initially stood in the way – until now.
Nothing stands in the way of Germany agreeing to the EU law on artificial intelligence.
Federal Digital Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) said that the struggle over Germany’s stance on the so-called “AI Act” had ended with an acceptable compromise. He emphasized that until recently he had advocated for more innovation-friendly rules and was able to achieve improvements for small and medium-sized companies. Disproportionate requirements were averted.
Wissing: “Europe should be an important AI location”
The negotiated compromise now lays a foundation for the development of trustworthy AI, said Wissing. Europe should be developed into an important AI location that can hold its own in global competition, said Wissing. It was primarily Wissing’s party, the FDP, that previously had reservations about the law.
EU: World’s first AI law
In the future, stricter rules will apply to the use of artificial intelligence in the EU. In December, negotiators from the European Parliament and EU states in Brussels agreed on rules after long negotiations. The EU Parliament speaks of the world’s first AI law.
The EU Commission proposed the law in April 2021. It stipulates that AI systems are divided into different risk groups. The higher the potential dangers of an application, the higher the requirements should be. The hope is that the law will serve as a role model and be followed worldwide.
AI on the rise
Artificial intelligence usually refers to applications based on machine learning, in which software sifts through large amounts of data for matches and draws conclusions from them. They are already being used in many areas.
For example, such programs can evaluate images from computer tomographs faster and with greater accuracy than humans. Self-driving cars also try to predict the behavior of other road users. And chatbots or automatic playlists from streaming services also work with AI.