The EU’s attempt to regulate artificial intelligence could backfire

The ‘Wild West’ of AI must be reigned in but how to be prescriptive enough to prohibit the malicious use of AI, yet open enough to promote further innovation and development?

The “Wild West” of artificial intelligence (AI) needs to be reined in, according to EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton. However, regulating AI generally, rather than regulating the technology’s uses specifically, may very well be putting the cart before the horse.

Late last month, the European Commission revealed its intention to draft regulation around the use of AI, with the aim of preventing misuse of the technology and ensuring that, in Breton’s words, the “individual and fundamental rights that we cherish in Europe are respected”.

The recently published white paper spells out the need to crack down on “high-risk” use cases. The issue, however, is that it arguably focuses too strongly on the technology involved, in lieu of the actual circumstances in which it is used.

Looking at facial recognition, for example, Dr Michael Veale of University College London argued that the paper “focuses far too heavily on the system in isolation without considering the context… [and] what it’s being used for”.

The issue with regulating the technology itself, as opposed to how it’s used, is that our current understanding of AI is always changing. Future systems will no doubt work with far more granular information, be based on more complex calculations, and…