EU laws set to ban aspects of AI that pose ‘a risk to human life’
ELEMENTS of Artificial Intelligence, especially those that pose ‘a risk to human life’, will be banned outright under upcoming EU laws, a minister has told the Irish Daily Mail.
Rapid advances in AI technology through programmes such as ChatGPT have sparked fears of massive job losses, as AI now has the ability to automate many jobs. Last month, EU members agreed a base text for new laws to regulate the technology.
The Italian government has already initiated proceedings against the company behind the tool, OpenAI, in relation to data protection.
Dara Calleary, junior enterprise minister with responsibility for AI, made the remarks in an interview with the Irish Daily Mail.
‘There’s going to be certain parts of it which are just banned outright. There’ll be risk categorisations,’ he said.
‘I hope we’ve learned from the experience of trying to regulate social media that we’ll be able to do it in a way that protects citizens.’
Asked what parts of AI would be banned outright, Mr Calleary said: ‘It’s so broad, you can’t even actually answer that.
‘There will be technologies where, you know, clearly there’s a risk to human life if they’re deployed, and they’re going to be banned, and there will be a process to do that.
‘That will be a very evidence-based process as to how something is riskassessed,’ he went on. ‘People, industry, NGOs will be able to see how that is done. I think that’s the first time that there will be some sort of shape put on the technology.’
Mr Calleary also pointed out that AI is going to be used within Government and the wider apparatus of State.
‘[Minister for eGovernment] Ossian Smyth is finalising guidelines for how it is used in public services’ he said.
‘There are technologies that can be used in healthcare. Extraordinary work is being done around how it can be used in scanners or screening programmes. AI technology can be used to reduce delays and even improve accuracy.’
But he also cautioned: ‘I think it’s important that we’re also re-skilling existing workers so that they have the skills they need to use AI. So I don’t see it as Armageddon for jobs.’