EU countries approve proposed legislation on Artificial Intelligence

The European Union countries This Friday they supported an ambitious bill of legislation to regulate the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)which had been the subject of intense negotiations, was officially announced.

“We are happy to announce that the ambassadors [de los 27 países de la UE] unanimously confirmed the text of the proposal on common rules on AI”, announced the delegation of Belgium, which holds the semiannual presidency of the bloc.

The European Comission (the executive arm of the EU) had presented its draft law on AI in April 2021, but the rise of platforms like ChatGPTat the end of 2022, caused a complete change of scenery.

This technology can produce dissertations, translations or complex poems in just seconds, and this completely modified the dimension of the proposal.

Similar systems can create images or sounds, and experts quickly warned about the risks in terms of manipulation or circulation of false information.

Last December, the European Parliament and the countries of the bloc had reached a political agreement, but several countries raised questions that left the finalization of the text uncertain.

After considering the observations – presented mainly by Germany and France– the permanent representatives of the bloc’s countries in Brussels finally gave the final green light this Friday.

The European Commissioner for Internal market (responsible for this negotiation), Thierry Breton, said that the legislative project package is “a world first”.

“The member states of the bloc approved the political agreement today, recognizing the balance found by the negotiators between innovation and security“, said.

In these negotiations, Germany and France They wanted the regulations to protect European companies specialized in AI.

Before this initiative is implemented, the European Parliament will have a final vote, which could happen in April.

However, the regulations would not come into force immediately, since some of its devices will begin to be applied within six months, and others in two years.