Countries are racing to regulate AI with mixed results
Banned Categorisation Legislation As Characteristics, Political, Ai Beliefs, Religious, Sensitive Proposed Biometric Race Systems Sexual Among The The Will Are Systems Be Under Such Or Eu Use That That Orientation, Philosophical
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has captured the imagination of businesses and consumers around the world. Kerry Group were one of the early companies in the food industry to use AI to calculate and predict the ingredients, flavours, foods and products most likely to match consumer's evolving tastes. Kerry is far from the only company to incorporate AI into its recipe-making. Other food giants, such as Coca-Cola’s Y3000 drink have been developed using AI, intended to evoke the flavours of the year 3000, whatever those might be.
However, the rapid uptake of AI technology at varying levels across nearly all industries and markets, has governments and consumer groups worried about the risks it poses to users’ privacy, safety and security.
In 2023, governments across the globe have rushed to introduce regulations to control the rapid evolution of AI technology, all seeking the moral high ground by announcing their newly devised regulatory system as the first and best.
Surprisingly, the People's Republic of China was the first out of the blocks to regulate. In August a new Chinese law designed to regulate generative AI came into force. This law targeting different aspects of AI, was announced as internationally groundbreaking as the first law that specifically targets generative AI.
Not to be outdone in the chase, the Biden Administration released an Executive Order in October on trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence. President Biden said at the launch that he considers the executive order “the most significant action any government anywhere in the world has ever taken on AI safety, security, and trust.”
Coming late to the party, in December, the European Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement on an AI Act which will classify AI systems based on the risks they pose. Once approved, the Commission states these will be the world’s first rules on AI. It is hard to work out who to believe, but the focus by Irish consumers and businesses based in Ireland will be on the EU regulations, as these are the ones they will have to abide by.
Among the AI systems that will be banned under the proposed EU legislation are biometric categorisation systems that use sensitive characteristics, such as political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, or race. AI that engages in untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases will also be prohibited, as will AI used for emotion recognition in the workplace and educational institutions; for social scoring based on social behaviour or personal characteristics; and AI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will. AI used to exploit people, due to their age, disability, social or economic situation, will also be prohibited, the Council said.
Businesses reviewing the proposed legalisation will focus on the penalties for ignoring the regulations, which range up to €35m or 7% of their annual global turnover if they use AI in a prohibited way.
There is no denying that risks exist, AI is awash with ethical and market access concerns. As it currently exists, AI is almost entirely built around the harvesting of vast amounts of personal data; in analysing this information, computers can make decisions on their own, raising multiple issues around privacy and morality.
However, the European Commission's response to AI is one of the blunderbusses, shooting not only those in the line of sight but anyone in the peripheral area as well. There are potentially big gains to be had from a nimbler, more pragmatic, growth-friendly approach. Hopefully, Ireland and other member states will buy the message and eliminate the worst legislative excesses from the final Member-approved legislation.
There are already significant challenges to making the technology useful for Irish industry, without having to deal with a new slew of regulations from Brussels. Key among these is the lack of skills in small to medium companies to deploy and effectively use the technology, according to the Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) researchers.
The digital skills gap is also the focus of a recent KPMG survey which states that many manufacturers responded they intend to develop and deploy their own AI solutions, yet most lack the skills to do so.
The breakthrough potential of AI is quite possibly being overhyped, however, there is little doubt about its economic and transformative promise, which may be critical to Ireland’s industrial competitiveness in the years ahead.
