European Union outlines ambitious AI regulations focused on risky uses

LONDON (AP) — Risky uses of artificial intelligence that threaten people's safety or rights such as live facial scanning should be banned or tightly controlled, European Union officials said Wednesday as they outlined an ambitious package of proposed regulations for the rapidly expanding technology.

The draft regulations from the EU's executive commission include rules for applications deemed high risk such as AI systems to filter out school, job or loan applicants. They would also ban artificial intelligence outright in a few cases considered too risky, such as government "social scoring" systems that judge people based on their behavior.

The proposals are the 27nation bloc's latest move to maintain its role as the world's standard-bearer for technology regulation, as it tries to keep up with the world's two big tech superpowers, the U.S. and China. EU officials say they are taking a four-level "risk-based approach" that seeks to balance important rights such as privacy against the need to encourage innovation.

"With these landmark rules, the EU is spearheading the development of new global norms to make sure AI can be trusted," Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission's executive vice president for the digital age, said in a statement. "By setting the standards, we can pave the way for to ethical technology worldwide and ensure that the EU remains competitive along the way."

Unacceptable AI uses also include manipulating behavior, exploiting children's vulnerabilities or using subliminal techniques.

"It can be a case where a toy uses voice systems to manipulate a child into doing something dangerous," Vestager told a media briefing. "Such uses have no place in Europe and therefore we propose to ban them."

The proposals include a prohibition in principle on controversial "remote biometric identification," such as the use of live facial recognition to pick people out of crowds in real time, because "there is no room for mass surveillance in our society," Vestager said.

There will, however, be an exception for narrowly defined law enforcement purposes such as searching for a missing child or a wanted person or preventing a terror attack.