"AI Act" passed

EU Parliament votes in favor of stricter AI regulation

523 MEPs in Strasbourg were in favor, 46 against and 49 abstained.

(Bild: APA/AFP/FREDERICK FLORIN)

The EU Parliament voted in favor of stricter regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) - the so-called "AI Act" - on Wednesday. 523 MEPs in Strasbourg were in favor, 46 against and 49 abstained. All Austrian MEPs voted in favor. According to the new rules, developers must clearly indicate that texts, images and sounds created by AI are based on this technology.

The EU regulation is also intended to guarantee the quality of the data used to develop the algorithms and ensure that no copyrights are infringed during AI development. There are to be stricter requirements for "high-risk" applications, such as critical infrastructure, security authorities and personnel administration.

Particularly sensitive applications such as "biometric categorization based on sensitive characteristics" and "the untargeted reading of facial images from the Internet or from surveillance cameras for facial recognition databases" will be banned altogether, according to the EU Parliament. This also applies to "emotion recognition systems in the workplace and in schools" as well as "the assessment of social behavior". However, data protectionists warn of loopholes.

ÖVP and SPÖ representatives welcome the law
Several ÖVP representatives expressed their approval after the vote. "I am delighted that the AI Act was passed in the European Parliament on my last day as State Secretary for Digitalization," said State Secretary for Digitalization Florian Tursky (ÖVP) in a statement. "We want to exploit the full potential of AI and at the same time guarantee full security," said ÖVP MEP Barbara Thaler. "In general, we should not be afraid of the risks in the AI discussion, but should also focus on the possibilities and potential."

SPÖ EU mandatary Andreas Schieder also welcomes the AI law. An important step is that "in future, all AI systems will have to undergo a risk assessment before they enter the EU market. Based on this assessment, the systems will be divided into different risk levels, which in turn will be subject to different rules."

NEOS MEP Claudia Gamon is delighted that the AI Act will give companies the legal certainty they need when developing AI systems. The "AI Act will therefore also boost economic innovation (...). At the same time, sensible rules will allay citizens' fears of the spectre of artificial intelligence." There had previously been fierce criticism from the IT industry, with the German industry association Bitkom warning against over-regulation as an obstacle to innovation in the still so young AI industry.