European Union: Published AI regulation proposal including service prohibitions of AI systems posing “unacceptable risk”

On 21 April 2021, the European Commission published its proposal for laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (AI Act). The “artificial intelligence system” is defined as a software developed for specific human-defined objectives that generated outputs, including content, recommendations, predictions or decisions that influence the environment they with which they interact. The AI Act proposal follows a risk-based approach and classifies AI systems as posing “unacceptable risk”, “high risk” and “low or minimal risk”. The AI Act, as outlined in article 5, would ban AI systems from the Single Market that could endanger people's safety and rights, including those referred to as manipulative and employing exploitative practices and indiscriminate surveillance. It would also ban public authorities from using AI systems for social scoring. In case of noncompliance, companies risk a fine of up to EUR 30 million or 6% of the company’s global annual revenue.