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Two groups of lawmakers at the European Parliament have approved a tentative agreement on artificial intelligence rules before the legislative assembly votes in April, which would mark the world’s first legislation on the technology.
On Tuesday, the Internal Market and Civil Liberties Committees voted 71-8 (seven abstentions) to approve the result of negotiations with the member states on the Artificial Intelligence Act.
The European Parliament said in a press release that the regulation aims to protect fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability from high-risk AI. However it also intends to boost innovation and establishing Europe as a leader in the AI field. The rules put in place obligations for AI based on its potential risks and level of impact.
“AI Act takes a step forward: MEPs in @EP_Justice & @EP_SingleMarket have endorsed the provisional agreement on an Artificial Intelligence Act that ensures safety and complies with fundamental rights,” said one of the two European Parliament committees said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The rules se guidelines for large language models, or LLMs for generative AI tools such as the one developed by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed OpenAI.
In December 2023, EU countries and lawmakers tentatively agreed on rules to govern AI systems. Meanwhile, Earlier this month, France dropped its opposition to the AI Act after securing conditions which balance transparency versus business secrets and reduce the administrative burden on high risk AI systems, according to a report from Reuters.
Previously, the EU has pushed for a tougher stance regarding governing AI, while Japan has looked at more easier approach, closer to what the U.S. has to strengthen economic growth. The Southeast Asian nations have also gone for a more business-friendly approach to AI. China is also expected to launch an initiative to govern AI from multiple angles. In October, U.S. President Joe Biden had issued an executive order to manage the risks of AI, among other things.
Generative AI services have become the talk of the town since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT last year. Companies worldwide are developing their own LLMs which can provide services such as content and image and voice generation, to name a few.
Meta Platforms’ (META) Emu Video, Emu Edit, AudioCraft, SeamlessM4T, and Llama 2, Alibaba’s (BABA) Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 and Tongyi Wanxiang, Baidu’s (BIDU) Ernie Bot, OpenAI’s text-to-image tool DALL·E 3, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL) unit Google’s Bard, Samsung’s (OTCPK:SSNLF) Gauss, Getty Images’ (GETY) model called Generative AI by Getty Images, and voice cloning AI tools from ElevenLabs, are some of the LLMs, among the many, being developed by companies.
