7 ms·

EU Approves AI Act

51 points by rippeltippel 2y ago

moffkalast 2y ago
> Transparency in Model Training: Companies must disclose information about the data used to train AI models, ensuring that the process is transparent and accountable. Big win for open source right there. Knock knock, it's the dataset inspector, open up! > Compliance with EU Copyright Rules: Ensuring that AI models respect intellectual property rights. This one's gonna be a rather tall order. Probably means removing all copyrighted material from the training set?
- viraptor 2y ago
  Ideally it means properly licensing the content not just removing it. It will be interesting to see how the pricing evolves over time.
- niemandhier 2y ago
  Not necessarily, the regulations for datamining are quite well defined. Could e.g. mean that you demonstrate that you have processes that check if the material you liked was flagged as „do not mine“. https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/ai-in-entertainment-and-media/2024/02/text-and-data-mining-in-eu https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/ai-in-entertainmen...
  - Findecanor 2y ago
    I interpret the text in the Act and the Directive that "opt-in" is still the default. The "opt-out" clause applies only to research and preservation. Researchers and archivists don't have to ask the rightsholder unless the content is flagged. Commercial users always have to.
    - niemandhier 2y ago
      If I am not mistaken, Article 4 of „the copyright directive in the Eu single market“, indicates an opt out model for text and data mining on copyrighted material in the case for commercial use. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj#d1e961-92-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj#d1e961-92-1 Can someone point me to the ai act article that would change that ?
      - Findecanor 2y ago
        You're right. The paragraph in the act (105) isn't very well written. You could interpret it as "opt-in required" until you read the referred document or the last sentence.
dotancohen 2y ago
> The EU Commission is vested with the authority to impose fines of up to €35 million ($38 million) or 7% of a company’s annual global revenue, whichever is higher. That seems significantly more severe than other similar legislation. I'm glad to see that the commission is taking the issue seriously.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Remind me again, how many big companies have been fined under the GDPR? Meta? Google? Microsoft? Anyone?
  - max_ 2y ago
    GDPR was useless it just gave us horrible pop-ups. And legal overhead for software developers.
    - gmerc 2y ago
      It’s adding billions a year to the EU budget so useless is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
      - lastdong 2y ago
        And enforcing our rights to privacy. Every data leak should be a reminder of the importance of these laws.
    - varispeed 2y ago
      GDPR was created to legitimise trade of personal data. It was done in a two step approach. First there was a cookie law, to train people to give consent to anything that pops up without reading, then GDPR where people give consent to data processing without even thinking about it. Then big corporations have a legal basis for trade of such data where before GDPR it was a grey area. Now they can say - users have consented for us to slice, dice and sell all the data related to them. GDPR was never about protection or to benefit citizens. One of the greatest deceptions.
viraptor 2y ago
You can find the actual text here https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ai-act-explorer/ https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ai-act-explorer/
bsaul 2y ago
I wish the EU were as good at creating tech companies as they are at regulating them.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Sitecore, Unity, SAP, Spotify, Nokia, Larian Studios... European universities => SIMULA, Prolog, OCaml, Modula-2, Pascal, Coq, Agda, Miranda, F#, Java Generics, .NET Generics, Scala...
  - eigenket 2y ago
    ASML, Dassault, Siemens...
    - newswasboring 2y ago
      So much of our global computing infrastructure is outside the US that when people complain about lack of tech industry outside US, I find it laughable. I hate that tech has been reduced to only the software side, mostly because it makes a lot of money. But all the physical technology and it's innovation happens outside US, it's just not seen because they don't slap their logo on everything.
  - oytis 2y ago
    What does it have to do with AI?
    - PodgieTar 2y ago
      He said creating tech companies. Not AI companies.
    - pacifika 2y ago
      we’re talking about tech companies, see above.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
max_ 2y ago
The funny thing is that Europeans will just be blocked from accessing AI applications. And EU citizens will complain why they don't have access to some AI products.
- fetzu 2y ago
  For better or worse, that’s exactly what’s going to happen mostly. And as a non EU European citizen, thank you for saying « Europeans » and not « EU Citizens »! We get most of the downsides, but none of the upsides..
  - oytis 2y ago
    This regulation shouldn't affect you if you are not in the EU though
    - fetzu 2y ago
      I unfortunately live in a small and « complicated » (3 languages for less than 9 million inhabitants) country landlocked in the EU. So in theory I shouldn’t be affected, but in reality either companies don’t care enough to make the distinction, or the EU ends up strong arming my government into adopting their regulation.
      - mike_hearn 2y ago
        Yes for those of us who live in Switzerland it is quite annoying to be conflated with the EU and then be blocked from stuff for no reason. For anyone reading this who gets assigned to work on compliance blocking, please remember at all times that there are quite a few countries in Europe that are not EU members - and often it's because of the EU's heavy handed approach to things, as visible here!
    - max_ 2y ago
      What if you have a software product you are selling to EU citizens?
GardenLetter27 2y ago
Is this an AI generated article? It sucks the EU is so regressive though - on everything from genetic engineering to AI. The precautionary principle has destroyed Europe's progress.
- mjhagen 2y ago
  It’s kept Europeans happy and healthy though.
- onetoo 2y ago
  If the EU is regressive then I don't want to live in your progressive society.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  On what are you basing your claims?
  - GardenLetter27 2y ago
    Stuff like this - https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/30cbe342-86ed-4a27-944e-0e4d6bbf9aeb.jpeg https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/30cbe342-86ed-4a27-944e-0e4d6b... I live in Europe.
biztos 2y ago
The Banned and High-Risk lists read like a call for startups (outside the EU). > U.S. tech giants, such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, will need to adapt their operations to meet these requirements. This could involve significant changes to their AI development processes and increased investments in compliance measures. I look forward to seeing how this plays out in real life. My best guess is some kind of less-capable AI for Europe, but I imagine there will be protectionism and stealth subsidies lurking in the details.
abbe98 2y ago
> Compliance with EU Copyright Rules: Ensuring that AI models respect intellectual property rights. I wonder what this will mean for openly licensed content which do require attribution, will companies still be able to use content from Wikipedia and open source? Or will they be at risk of being sued by the copyright holders? Assuming that they can't properly fix attribution/referencing in output.
sturza 2y ago
Overview of the AI Act: Aims to regulate AI applications to ensure they align with ethical standards and human rights. Emphasizes transparency, accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights. Penalties for Non-Compliance: Companies face significant fines (up to €35 million or 7% of global revenue) for violating the Act, highlighting the EU's commitment to robust enforcement. Risk-Based Approach: The Act categorizes AI applications based on their risk level: Unacceptable Applications: Includes social scoring, predictive policing, and emotional recognition in sensitive areas. High-Risk Systems: Includes autonomous vehicles, medical devices, and AI in finance and education, which require stringent evaluations. Impact on U.S. Tech Giants: Companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI must adapt to the EU's regulations, focusing on compliance with copyright rules, transparency in model training, and maintaining high cybersecurity standards. Implementation Timeline: The Act has a phased implementation with a 12-month delay for initial compliance and a 36-month transition period for existing AI systems. Effective Implementation: Emphasizes the need for clear guidelines, robust monitoring, and stakeholder collaboration to ensure the regulations are practical and beneficial.
- viraptor 2y ago
  The post is already a summary. This content not that much shorter than the article. Did you just plug the text into chatgpt to post it here? If so... why bother?
  - sturza 2y ago
    One less click and scroll?
idle_zealot 2y ago
Most of this law actually sounds very reasonable. It explicitly bans a bunch of ways companies and states have been looking into using AI to abuse people, and categorizes a bunch more as high-risk to ensure greater scrutiny. I'm not quite sure how to interpret the mention of copyright compliance. Is it imlying the EU has decided that training on protected works constitutes a copyright violation, or is it merely affirming that if copyright law is ruled to apply then it will apply? Besides that it's the "general intelligence existential risk" rules that are concerning to me. They set a hard arbitrary cutoff on how much compute can be used to train a model before it is subject to a bunch of extra requirements, and reserve the right to declare any general AI a risk and demand changes. Note that the definition of a "general AI" is incredibly broad, and by my reading covers all LLMs.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  > how much compute can be used to train a model I mean is there even a way to verify this? Even if you monitor someone's GPU usage anyone could just lie about the number of times they had to revert to previous checkpoints. From the raw physical perspective any model you look at could just be a series of randomly initialized weights.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Official release: https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/council-of-europe-adopts-first-international-treaty-on-artificial-intelligence https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/council-of-europe-adopts... https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/21/artificial-intelligence-ai-act-council-gives-final-green-light-to-the-first-worldwide-rules-on-ai/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...

51 points by rippeltippel 2y ago

> Transparency in Model Training: Companies must disclose information about the data used to train AI models, ensuring that the process is transparent and accountable. Big win for open source right there. Knock knock, it's the dataset inspector, open up! > Compliance with EU Copyright Rules: Ensuring that AI models respect intellectual property rights. This one's gonna be a rather tall order. Probably means removing all copyrighted material from the training set?

viraptor 2y ago
Ideally it means properly licensing the content not just removing it. It will be interesting to see how the pricing evolves over time.
niemandhier 2y ago
Not necessarily, the regulations for datamining are quite well defined. Could e.g. mean that you demonstrate that you have processes that check if the material you liked was flagged as „do not mine“. https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/ai-in-entertainment-and-media/2024/02/text-and-data-mining-in-eu https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/ai-in-entertainmen...
- Findecanor 2y ago
  I interpret the text in the Act and the Directive that "opt-in" is still the default. The "opt-out" clause applies only to research and preservation. Researchers and archivists don't have to ask the rightsholder unless the content is flagged. Commercial users always have to.
  - niemandhier 2y ago
    If I am not mistaken, Article 4 of „the copyright directive in the Eu single market“, indicates an opt out model for text and data mining on copyrighted material in the case for commercial use. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj#d1e961-92-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/790/oj#d1e961-92-1 Can someone point me to the ai act article that would change that ?
    - Findecanor 2y ago
      You're right. The paragraph in the act (105) isn't very well written. You could interpret it as "opt-in required" until you read the referred document or the last sentence.

dotancohen 2y ago

> The EU Commission is vested with the authority to impose fines of up to €35 million ($38 million) or 7% of a company’s annual global revenue, whichever is higher. That seems significantly more severe than other similar legislation. I'm glad to see that the commission is taking the issue seriously.

jiggawatts 2y ago
Remind me again, how many big companies have been fined under the GDPR? Meta? Google? Microsoft? Anyone?
- max_ 2y ago
  GDPR was useless it just gave us horrible pop-ups. And legal overhead for software developers.
  - gmerc 2y ago
    It’s adding billions a year to the EU budget so useless is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
    - lastdong 2y ago
      And enforcing our rights to privacy. Every data leak should be a reminder of the importance of these laws.
  - varispeed 2y ago
    GDPR was created to legitimise trade of personal data. It was done in a two step approach. First there was a cookie law, to train people to give consent to anything that pops up without reading, then GDPR where people give consent to data processing without even thinking about it. Then big corporations have a legal basis for trade of such data where before GDPR it was a grey area. Now they can say - users have consented for us to slice, dice and sell all the data related to them. GDPR was never about protection or to benefit citizens. One of the greatest deceptions.

viraptor 2y ago

You can find the actual text here https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ai-act-explorer/ https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ai-act-explorer/

bsaul 2y ago

I wish the EU were as good at creating tech companies as they are at regulating them.

pjmlp 2y ago
Sitecore, Unity, SAP, Spotify, Nokia, Larian Studios... European universities => SIMULA, Prolog, OCaml, Modula-2, Pascal, Coq, Agda, Miranda, F#, Java Generics, .NET Generics, Scala...
- eigenket 2y ago
  ASML, Dassault, Siemens...
  - newswasboring 2y ago
    So much of our global computing infrastructure is outside the US that when people complain about lack of tech industry outside US, I find it laughable. I hate that tech has been reduced to only the software side, mostly because it makes a lot of money. But all the physical technology and it's innovation happens outside US, it's just not seen because they don't slap their logo on everything.
- oytis 2y ago
  What does it have to do with AI?
  - PodgieTar 2y ago
    He said creating tech companies. Not AI companies.
  - pacifika 2y ago
    we’re talking about tech companies, see above.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

max_ 2y ago

The funny thing is that Europeans will just be blocked from accessing AI applications. And EU citizens will complain why they don't have access to some AI products.

fetzu 2y ago
For better or worse, that’s exactly what’s going to happen mostly. And as a non EU European citizen, thank you for saying « Europeans » and not « EU Citizens »! We get most of the downsides, but none of the upsides..
- oytis 2y ago
  This regulation shouldn't affect you if you are not in the EU though
  - fetzu 2y ago
    I unfortunately live in a small and « complicated » (3 languages for less than 9 million inhabitants) country landlocked in the EU. So in theory I shouldn’t be affected, but in reality either companies don’t care enough to make the distinction, or the EU ends up strong arming my government into adopting their regulation.
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
      Yes for those of us who live in Switzerland it is quite annoying to be conflated with the EU and then be blocked from stuff for no reason. For anyone reading this who gets assigned to work on compliance blocking, please remember at all times that there are quite a few countries in Europe that are not EU members - and often it's because of the EU's heavy handed approach to things, as visible here!
  - max_ 2y ago
    What if you have a software product you are selling to EU citizens?

GardenLetter27 2y ago

Is this an AI generated article? It sucks the EU is so regressive though - on everything from genetic engineering to AI. The precautionary principle has destroyed Europe's progress.

mjhagen 2y ago
It’s kept Europeans happy and healthy though.
onetoo 2y ago
If the EU is regressive then I don't want to live in your progressive society.
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
On what are you basing your claims?
- GardenLetter27 2y ago
  Stuff like this - https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/30cbe342-86ed-4a27-944e-0e4d6bbf9aeb.jpeg https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/30cbe342-86ed-4a27-944e-0e4d6b... I live in Europe.

biztos 2y ago

The Banned and High-Risk lists read like a call for startups (outside the EU). > U.S. tech giants, such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, will need to adapt their operations to meet these requirements. This could involve significant changes to their AI development processes and increased investments in compliance measures. I look forward to seeing how this plays out in real life. My best guess is some kind of less-capable AI for Europe, but I imagine there will be protectionism and stealth subsidies lurking in the details.

abbe98 2y ago

> Compliance with EU Copyright Rules: Ensuring that AI models respect intellectual property rights. I wonder what this will mean for openly licensed content which do require attribution, will companies still be able to use content from Wikipedia and open source? Or will they be at risk of being sued by the copyright holders? Assuming that they can't properly fix attribution/referencing in output.

sturza 2y ago

Overview of the AI Act: Aims to regulate AI applications to ensure they align with ethical standards and human rights. Emphasizes transparency, accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights. Penalties for Non-Compliance: Companies face significant fines (up to €35 million or 7% of global revenue) for violating the Act, highlighting the EU's commitment to robust enforcement. Risk-Based Approach: The Act categorizes AI applications based on their risk level: Unacceptable Applications: Includes social scoring, predictive policing, and emotional recognition in sensitive areas. High-Risk Systems: Includes autonomous vehicles, medical devices, and AI in finance and education, which require stringent evaluations. Impact on U.S. Tech Giants: Companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI must adapt to the EU's regulations, focusing on compliance with copyright rules, transparency in model training, and maintaining high cybersecurity standards. Implementation Timeline: The Act has a phased implementation with a 12-month delay for initial compliance and a 36-month transition period for existing AI systems. Effective Implementation: Emphasizes the need for clear guidelines, robust monitoring, and stakeholder collaboration to ensure the regulations are practical and beneficial.

viraptor 2y ago
The post is already a summary. This content not that much shorter than the article. Did you just plug the text into chatgpt to post it here? If so... why bother?
- sturza 2y ago
  One less click and scroll?

idle_zealot 2y ago

Most of this law actually sounds very reasonable. It explicitly bans a bunch of ways companies and states have been looking into using AI to abuse people, and categorizes a bunch more as high-risk to ensure greater scrutiny. I'm not quite sure how to interpret the mention of copyright compliance. Is it imlying the EU has decided that training on protected works constitutes a copyright violation, or is it merely affirming that if copyright law is ruled to apply then it will apply? Besides that it's the "general intelligence existential risk" rules that are concerning to me. They set a hard arbitrary cutoff on how much compute can be used to train a model before it is subject to a bunch of extra requirements, and reserve the right to declare any general AI a risk and demand changes. Note that the definition of a "general AI" is incredibly broad, and by my reading covers all LLMs.

moffkalast 2y ago
> how much compute can be used to train a model I mean is there even a way to verify this? Even if you monitor someone's GPU usage anyone could just lie about the number of times they had to revert to previous checkpoints. From the raw physical perspective any model you look at could just be a series of randomly initialized weights.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Official release: https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/council-of-europe-adopts-first-international-treaty-on-artificial-intelligence https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/council-of-europe-adopts... https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/21/artificial-intelligence-ai-act-council-gives-final-green-light-to-the-first-worldwide-rules-on-ai/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...