First AIDAHO Lecture: Axel Voss, MEP unveils insides on EU AI Act: "Tight schedule, many open issues" [24.01.23]
The first-ever AIDAHO Lecture was given on Thursday, January 19, 2023 by Axel Voss, a longtime member of the European Parliamant (EP) and member of the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age (AIDA).
As Rapporteur or shadow-rapporteur for the Europeans People Party he was involved in all important legislation projects of the European Parliament in this area over the last years.In his lecture, Voss focused on the AI Act and unveiled insights into the complicated negotiations currently taking place between the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council In this respect. He is very worried, that a bureaucratic legislative regulation is in the making. "Under the current EP majority's idea, 85% of AI algorithms fall within the scopeof the directive. Even some soda machines would then be considered to contain high-risk AI algorithms, potentially destroying business models as they involve a lot of red tape," Voss told the AIDAHO-students and interested University members. One tabled amendmentcurrently under discussion would effectively ban software for facial recognition entirely from the European market.
"Even the definition of AI is currently under heavy discussion and decisive for the scope of the regulation", said Voss. While the Commission's proposal is quite broad, Voss favours a definition of AI algorithms developed by the OECD based on internationallyimplemented laws. Provisions on algorithmic validation, data security, and sandbox tests, among others, would make the directive hard to enforce if 85% of statistical methods and algorithms were to fall withinits scope.
"This seems to be a bureaucratic nightmare that affects all businesses where decisions are made on statistical methods", an audience member remarked. "The sad thing is that small and medium-sized enterprises, which would be greatly affected by the legislativeapproach, are not currently participating in the discussions", Voss agreed in response.
In the face of social scoring and other ethical issues, Voss urged the audience to take part in the discussion on a European level: "Europe needs to set the tone in AI regulations. Otherwise, international industrial norms and standards are set by others. TheChinese government for example is currently very active in that regard."
Detailing the necessary steps the regulation proposal has to pass through the institutions, Axel Voss depicted the current schedule for the regulation to be rather tight. "We need to finish this piece of legislation before the upcoming elections 2024." Vossmade clear that with all the open issues and leaping developments such as ChatGPT, this is a demanding task and a tight schedule.
