EPP Group wants human-centred and risk-based AI Regulation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a growing role for European economies and democracies. This is why the EPP Group wants Europe to be at the forefront setting the rules for global standards. We want a human-centred, risk-based and balanced framework for AI with high ethical standards, appropriate liability rules and legal certainty for developers and users when it comes to intellectual property rights. The European Parliament will hold a debate on proposals for a Regulation today.

“We need to strike the right balance between legal certainty and leaving enough leeway for innovation. Our blueprint for the European Commission to propose a Regulation on civil liability for AI achieves that goal while also harmonising rules in the Digital Single Market”, said the EPP Group’s Legal Affairs Spokesman Axel Voss MEP who negotiated the Parliament’s position on Civil Liability of Artificial Intelligence. “This does not require major changes to the EU's legal system. Our goal is to fill one potential legal gap by making operators of high-risk AI systems strictly liable for the harm their applications are causing when there is neither a defect nor a fault”, added Voss.

"AI systems must be a tool for humans, mastered by humans, at the service of humans. They must be regulated in order to remain trustworthy. This is why we need a fair balance between technological progress and human respect”, stressed Geoffroy Didier MEP, the EPP Group’s Deputy Spokesman on Legal Affairs and Shadow Rapporteur on the framework of ethical aspects of AI. He explained: “We have convinced all the political groups of the need to regulate only high-risk technologies so as not to hinder economic innovation, particularly SMEs. A leisure application on a mobile phone should not be subject to the same normative constraints as a technology like facial recognition.”

“We want to protect the creativity and innovative force of our developers. Therefore, we pushed for an effective intellectual property rights system and protection for the EU’s patent system. However, it is important to ensure that any future Regulation distinguishes between AI-assisted human creations and AI-generated creations. We only want to grant intellectual property rights to humans, not to machines”, said the EPP Group Shadow Rapporteur on intellectual property rights for the development of AI technologies, Andrzej Halicki MEP.

The plenary will vote on Tuesday on the Parliament’s vision of EU rules for AI, before the European Commission presents its proposals early next year.