The proposed rules are expected to be passed, however an amendment to allow for the use of facial recognition in limited circumstances, tabled by the European People’s Party of which Fine Gael is a member, has led to unease among some groups in the parliament, who believe it should be banned.
I’m glad we’re bringing in some sort of regulation, social media companies got away with shady business practices for years by selling user data without express consent before GDPR was brought in.
With AI advancing so fast and only being able to be controlled by large entities with enough resources to power it, we need proper regulation that protects EU citizens from disinformation and manipulation tactics that can be employed across the internet without us even realising it.
Ireland has already been creating a biometric photo database of the country’s 3.2 million Public Services Card (PSC) holders.
So I am hopeful that the amendment to allow for the use of facial recognition in limited circumstances is completely shut down for now. In the future, using AI in exceptional legal cases might be alright once everyone fully understands how it would work and how it can be regulated and how their rights would be affected by its implementation
Olga Cronin, surveillance and human rights policy officer at ICCL, said the Department has been “building a national biometric database without a relevant legal basis and without transparency”.
“It continues to collect people’s biometric information in exchange for services they are legally entitled to.
I’m sure we’ll begin to see AI take over jobs, leading to higher unemployment/ shorter working hours, it would be great to see some form of universal basic income come out of this to allow for a better work life balance, maybe it could be subsidies by companies that choose to use AI for these positions.
Here’s a bit more information on what is being voted on today https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230505IPR84904/ai-act-a-step-closer-to-the-first-rules-on-artificial-intelligence
Having comprehensive rules for AI is really a good. Idea. Most of them sound great, though I am worried about how well they are implemented.
Especially when it comes to manipulative content, regulation will be difficult as it could be used to allow certain manipulation, while banning non-manipulative content with opposing views. Transparency in the regulatory bodies overseeing this would be important.
But considering the current regulatory bodies cannot even do anything about monopolies or oligopolies, cartels and so on, this could end up as a problem.