EU Expected to Regulate AI for Many Purposes

Under draft regulations that may be released as soon as next week, the EU will propose to regulate the use of artificial intelligence for surveillance and many other purposes. The EU is already the world's watchdog for consumer privacy matters. The proposed new regulations would extend that status to AI systems, such as facial recognition, in many instances. The proposed rules are said to be spurred by the use of AI in China to target certain ethnic/religious populations, and by the desire for AI to be deployed ethically.  

Bloomberg reports that "AI systems used to manipulate human behavior, exploit information about individuals or groups of individuals, used to carry out social scoring or for indiscriminate surveillance would all be banned." Many permitted but high-risk uses of AI (such as for remote surgery or self-driving cars) would have to undergo government inspection prior to their use.  

Breach of the rules could trigger fines of up to 4% of global revenue. Each EU member country would be required to establish an implementing body to enforce the new rules. There are exceptions in the draft rules for military and certain public security applications.