EU AI Act should revise its risk-based approach: Report

Jun 21, 2024, 4:31 pm EDT | Masha Borak

EU AI Act should revise its risk-based approach: Report

Another voice has joined the chorus criticizing the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, this time arguing that important provisions of the AI Act do not follow a truly risk-based approach.

A legal study is arguing that the world’s first attempt at comprehensively regulating AI could lead to “legal uncertainty and potential over-regulation, as well as unjustified increases in compliance costs.” But there is a silver lining.

“The AI Act provides for sufficient tools to support future-proof legislation and to implement it in line with a genuine risk-based approach,” writes Martin Ebers, president of the Robotics & AI Law Society (RAILS) in Germany and professor of IT Law at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Ebers.

The AI Act received its final green light in May with implementation still awaiting a long role ahead. The Act follows the formula “the higher the risk, the stricter the rules,” sorting different AI uses according to four risk categories. This regulatory path was chosen to protect rights while simultaneously supporting innovation.

Elbers, who is also a senior research fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin, recommends that the AI Act should be implemented according to its original intention of a risk-based approach. Sector-specific legislation should also be added to avoid inconsistencies and over-regulation.

The European Commission AI Office should also “clarify, concretize, amend, supplement, modify or even delete a large number of provisions of the AI Act to ‘take into account the rapid pace of technological development, as well as the potential changes in the use of AI systems.’”

Since its draft was first published in 2021, the AI Act has spurred heated debates, with human rights organizations criticizing it for inadequate protections and business groups decrying heavy compliance burdens. The newest report was commissioned by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA Europe).

“Legislators around the world need to know that key AI Act provisions fail to follow a genuine risk-based approach, says Boniface de Champris, CCIA Europe’s senior policy manager. “As long as these structural issues have not been resolved, other lawmakers should not adopt the EU’s approach without careful consideration, as this would duplicate the AI Act’s shortcomings on a global scale.”