Details of Europe’s AI rules being hammered out

LONDON — Hailed as a world first, European Union artificial intelligence rules are facing a makeor-break moment as negotiators try to hammer out the final details this week — talks complicated by the sudden rise of generative AI that produces humanlike work.

First suggested in 2019, the EU’S AI Act was expected to be the world’s first comprehensive AI regulations, further cementing the 27-nation bloc’s position as a global trendsetter when it comes to reining in the tech industry.

But the process has been bogged down by a last-minute battle over how to govern systems that underpin general purpose AI services like Openai’s CHATGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot. Big tech companies are lobbying against what they see as overregulation that stifles innovation, while European lawmakers want added safeguards for the cutting-edge AI systems those companies are developing.

Meanwhile, the United States, U.K., China and global coalitions like the Group of 7 major democracies have joined the race to draw up guardrails for the rapidly developing technology, underscored by warnings from researchers and rights groups of the existential dangers that generative AI poses to humanity as well as the risks to everyday life.

“Rather than the AI Act becoming the global gold standard for AI regulation, there’s a small chance but growing chance that it won’t be agreed before the European Parliament elections” next year, said Nick Reiners, a tech policy analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk advisory firm.

He said “there’s simply so much to nail down” at what officials are hoping is a final round of talks Wednesday. Even if they work late into the night as expected, they might have to scramble to finish in the new year, Reiners said.