The "milestone moment" of AI regulation has arrived! The European Union officially approves AI regulatory legislation

Intelligence Finance APP learned that on Tuesday, the European Union officially approved a crucial AI regulatory law reached in December last year. This milestone AI regulatory guideline and law, which is of great significance at the global level of AI regulation, will take effect next month, setting a potential benchmark for the application and popularization of artificial intelligence in human society's business and daily life.

From a regulatory perspective, the EU's AI regulation is more comprehensive than the touch-and-go voluntary compliance approach proposed in the United States. Two months ago, EU legislators supported the European Commission in drafting AI regulatory legislation starting from 2021, with some key modifications made by the European Commission to this legislation.

In recent months, with the groundbreaking AI chatbot ChatGPT developed by OpenAI and the AI chatbot Gemini launched by Google becoming increasingly popular among global consumers, concerns about AI fostering misinformation, fake news, and copyrighted materials have intensified globally, highlighting the importance of AI regulatory guidelines.

Belgian Minister of Digitalization, Mathieu Michel, stated in a declaration: "This milestone law is the world's first formal law of its kind, effectively addressing global technological challenges and creating new opportunities for our society and economy."

He added: "Through this formally adopted AI regulatory law, European countries emphasize the importance of trust, transparency, and accountability in dealing with this new technology, while ensuring that this rapidly evolving technology can thrive and promote innovation in Europe."

It is understood that the EU's "Artificial Intelligence Act" imposes strict transparency obligations on high-risk AI systems, while the requirements for general AI models will be relatively lighter.

This law will also restrict governments from using real-time biometric identification surveillance in public places to certain criminal cases, preventing terrorist attacks and targeting groups suspected of the most serious crimes.

Patrick van Eecke from Cooley law firm stated that the impact of the new legislation will extend far beyond the EU's 27-country bloc, spreading to all corners of the globe.

"This law will have a global impact. Especially companies outside the EU using EU customer data on their AI platforms will need to comply with this regulation. Other countries and regions may take the EU's 'Artificial Intelligence Act' as a benchmark blueprint, just as they did with the General Data Protection Regulation," he referred to the EU's data privacy regulatory benchmark rules.

Within the first 6 months after the law officially takes effect, relevant AI regulatory bans and some provisions will be gradually implemented. This means that although full implementation may have to wait until 2026, some crucial AI regulatory provisions will begin to be rapidly enforced shortly after the law takes effect, swiftly impacting the use of AI in related fields Therefore, although the new regulatory laws will first be comprehensively popularized and will ultimately come into full effect in 2026, the ban on using artificial intelligence in social credit scoring, predictive policing, and indiscriminate facial recognition from the internet or closed-circuit television footage will come into effect within 6 months. In other words, the ban on certain AI regulations in the EU will take effect within 6 months, which means that the legal status of the regulations themselves will gradually be established within 6 months, but the specific details and implementation timeline of AI regulations vary depending on different provisions.

The details also indicate that the regulatory obligations for general artificial intelligence models will take effect 12 months later, while the regulatory rules for deep artificial intelligence systems embedded in regulated products will take effect 36 months later.

Regarding penalties for violations in the EU AI regulatory framework, fines for violations range from €7.5 million (approximately $8.2 million) or 1.5% to 3.5% of the total annual turnover, up to €35 million, or even up to 7% of the global annual turnover, depending on the type of violation