European Union: The European Union And The Council Of Europe Give The Go Ahead For European AI Regulation

The European Union has set itself the ambitious goal of comprehensively regulating AI now, aiming to ensure that future AI usage and development are safe, transparent and fully align with fundamental rights.

To realise this ambition, the EU is ready to introduce detailed and multi-layered AI regulation, including detailed provisions for monitoring and sanctioning the new rules.

With over 450 pages and 113 articles, the complexity of the AI Act also significantly exceeds the GDPR, which will make compliance with the AI Act challenging.

In contrast, the Council of Europe’s AI Convention operates at a much higher level. As an intergovernmental convention, it focuses primarily on establishing principles to ensure the use of AI is compliant with human rights.

In addition to the member states of the Council of Europe, countries such as the USA and Japan as well as representatives from the technology industry and civil society also took part in the negotiations.

The result is a very broad-based agreement with global reach, but it only represents a minimum standard for the responsible use of AI.

The concrete implementation of the defined principles will take place at member state level. Switzerland is likely to model itself primarily on the EU’s AI Act.