The Global Battle to Regulate AI Is Just Beginning

Where is it all going?

The Global Battle to Regulate AI Is Just Beginning

By Wired, May 11, 2023

At the core of the debate about regulating AI is the question of whether it's possible to limit the risks it presents to societies without stifling the growth of a technology that many politicians expect to be the engine of the future economy.

Dan Nechita has spent the past year shuttling back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg. As the head of cabinet (essentially chief of staff) for one of the two rapporteurs leading negotiations over the EU's proposed new AI law, he's helped hammer out compromises between those who want the technology to be tightly regulated and those who believe innovation needs more space to evolve.

The discussions have, Nechita says, been "long and tedious." First there were debates about how to define AI—what it was that Europe was even regulating. "That was a very, very, very long discussion," Nechita says. Then there was a split over what uses of AI were so dangerous they should be banned or categorized as high-risk. "We had an ideological divide between those who would want almost everything to be considered high-risk and those who would prefer to keep the list as small and precise as possible."

But those often tense negotiations mean that the European Parliament is getting closer to a sweeping political agreement that would outline the body's vision for regulating AI. That agreement is likely to include an outright ban on some uses of AI, such as predictive policing, and extra transparency requirements for AI judged to be high-risk, such as systems used in border control.

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