Brussels, 3 August 2024 (dpa/MIA) - A major new law regulating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the European Union came into force on Thursday.

European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said the AI Act is "an important step to ensure that AI technology uptake respects EU rules in Europe."

Specifically, the AI Act creates a certification regime for uses of the transformative technology in "high-risk" applications, such as law enforcement and employment.

The EU hopes that by laying down strict rules relatively early in the technology's development it will address potential dangers in time and help shape the international agenda for regulating AI.

AI systems intended for use in high-risk areas will have to meet various standards spanning transparency, accuracy, cybersecurity and quality of training data.

Such systems will have to obtain certification from approved bodies before they can be put on the EU market. A new commission body called the AI Office will oversee EU-wide enforcement.

Some AI uses - such as Chinese-style social credit scoring - will be banned outright.

There are also more basic rules for general purpose systems that may be used in various situations - some high-risk, others not. For example, providers of such systems will have to keep certain technical documents for audit.

From now on, providers of especially powerful general purpose AI systems will have to notify the commission if their system possesses certain technical capabilities.

Unless the provider can prove that their system poses no serious risk, the commission could designate it as a "general-purpose AI model with systemic risk," after which stricter risk-mitigation rules would apply.

AI-generated content such as images, sound or text would also have to be marked as such to protect against misleading deepfake material.

The maximum fine possible in the AI Act - for using an AI system for a specific banned purpose - is up to €35 million ($38 million) or 7% of a company's annual revenue.

Fines for infringements of the AI Act's other legal obligations for can be up to 3% of revenue while supplying incorrect information to regulators can be up to 1.5%.

The fines would be capped lower for EU bodies that break the rules.

Photo: MIA Archive