European Parliament Approves Comprehensive AI Act to Regulate Artificial Intelligence
The European Parliament officially passes the AI Act, a landmark risk-based legislation that introduces strict guardrails, transparency requirements, and copyright protections for AI systems across the EU.
The European Parliament votes to approve the AI Act, a landmark piece of legislation that governs artificial intelligence across the European Union. First introduced in 2021, this comprehensive law takes a risk-based approach to regulation and aims to protect citizens without stifling innovation. After three years of negotiations and 800 amendments, the act establishes new guardrails for developing and deploying various AI tools.
The legislation addresses multiple critical concerns, including copyright, intellectual property, data privacy, and health and safety. It specifically targets AI-generated deepfakes and election-related content by requiring clear disclosures to label images, video, and audio as artificially generated. Lawmakers state that these transparency measures are essential to protect the rights of authors, scientists, and other creators whose work is used to train algorithms.
Co-rapporteur Dragos Tudorache notes that lawmakers faced heavy lobbying from companies seeking to keep their AI models as opaque "black boxes." Despite this pressure, the European Parliament prioritizes transparency to ensure creators know if their work is used in training data. The final legislation ultimately seeks to create enablers for European businesses while enhancing vital protections for citizens across the 27-country bloc.