The European Union bans “social scoring” and rules on AI

After lengthy negotiations, MEPs yesterday reached an agreement with the council on the subject of artificial intelligence. They decided together on the measures to put in place in order to regulate it as best as possible.

L’European Unionis also the first institution in the world to propose regulations in this area, as mentionedThierry Bretonin his latest publication on the social network [X].

Deal!#AIAct pic.twitter.com/UwNoqmEHt5
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton)December 8, 2023

It is true that the institution is for once ahead of its subject. But the initiative is perhaps not theirs. In the past, seeing that the systems they were developing had the capacity to compromise existing democratic systems, somemajor players operating in the AI sector have called for EU regulation. This is what was reportedAurélie Jean, a French researcher renowned worldwide in the field, who adds thatMark Zuckerberg was also part of this requestregulation.

“The AI Law sets rules for large and powerful AI models, ensuring that they do not pose systemic risks to the Union and provides strong guarantees for our citizens and our democracies against any abuse of technology by public authorities. »

The AIs that we have heard about repeatedly for a little over a year now are alsoIAsaygenerative (Chat GPT, Bard, etc.). They are just repeating what human beings have taught them. Fears about an AI that could compromise the democratic model in place are of the type “general».We explained this in a previous article on the subject.

Regulations put in place

Here is the list of AI applications that the EU wants to ban:

biometric categorization systems that use sensitive characteristics (e.g. political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, race);
untargeted retrieval of facial images from the Internet or video surveillance footage to create facial recognition databases;
recognition of emotions in the workplace and in educational institutions;
social rating based on social behavior or personal characteristics;
AI systems that manipulate human behavior to circumvent their free will;
AI is used to exploit people's vulnerabilities (due to their age, disability, social or economic situation).

Some of the measures cited abovemay be subject to exemption in the context of certain investigations.

Some AI systems deemed potentially “high risk" due to "their significant potential harm to health, safety, fundamental rights, the environment, democracy and the rule of law» will also have to submit to very strict obligations.