The EU Parliament approved the law on the regulation of artificial intelligence

European Union lawmakers have adopted a landmark document that regulates the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and requires providers to be more transparent.

The majority of votes (523 “for”) supported this draft law. The law has yet to undergo final review and approval from the European Council. It will enter into force 20 days after publication in the official journal.

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, described it as innovative and said that it promotes innovation while preserving fundamental rights. The law divides technologies into risk categories: from “unacceptable” (which will be banned) to technologies of high, medium and low level of danger.

The document provides space for the “free use” of low-risk AI, which includes applications such as AI-powered video games or spam filters. According to the EU, the “vast majority” of AI systems used in the bloc currently fall into this category.

An example of unacceptable technology is remote biometric identification systems based on artificial intelligence for scanning persons by local authorities. “High-risk” applications include critical infrastructure, product security components, essential private and public services, law enforcement technologies that may violate human rights, and more.

However, the EU AI Act still does not clarify how companies should deal with copyrighted material included in model training data.

Fines will range from €7.5 million or 1.5% of the company’s total global turnover (whichever is greater) for providing incorrect information to regulators; up to €15 million or 3% of global turnover for breaching certain provisions of the law, such as transparency obligations; up to €35 million, or 7% of turnover, for deploying or developing prohibited AI tools.