European Parliament passes landmark AI legislation with AI Act vote

The European Parliament on Wednesday voted to approve the highly anticipated AI Act, comprehensive legislation to govern artificial intelligence across the European Union. First introduced in 2021, the AI Act aims to provide a risk-based approach to regulating AI without stifling innovation across the 27-country bloc.

After three years and 800 amendments, the landmark legislation creates new guardrails for developing and deploying AI systems and various AI tools. In addition to new transparency requirements, the rules cover a range of concerns related to copyright, intellectual property, data privacy, health and safety and other ethical issues. The AI Act also addresses AI-generated deepfakes and election-related content will require clear disclosures labeling images, video and audio as AI-generated.

Lawmakers sought to “create enablers” for European businesses while also enhancing protections for citizens, according to Dragos Tudorache, a Belgian member of the European Parliament. At a press briefing before the vote, Tudorache — who was co-rapporteur for the AI Act alongside Italian Member of Parliament Brando Benifei — noted that lawmakers faced heavy lobbying against transparency measures for rules around AI and copyrighted materials. While companies pushed to keep “black box” AI models intact, they said lawmakers knew transparency rules around data and content would be important. 

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