Brussels ready to suspend the application of artificial intelligence rules because they are inapplicable according to companies. For Mario Draghi they are “source of uncertainty”. The European avant -garde fairy tale ended badly
In the end, artificial intelligence also had to surrender to the octusity of Euroburocrats. After months of triumphalistic ads, enlightened press conferences and solemn statements in animated power points, here is the ACT – the law that should have regulated the new digital era in Europe – will be suspended.
Not an official rejection, for heaven’s sake. The European Union does not do these things. Euroburocrats prefer to speak of “technical break”, or for those who love the elegance of the laps of words, of “postponement to mature the benefits of collective reflection”. In other words: the entry into force of the law will be blocked without saying it.
After shouting to the four winds that Europe was “the first to regulate the IA”, after having passed the parameters on the new technology as the new Gospel of ethically correct innovation, now Brussels stammering. It turns out that behind the apparent safety, there are no technical standards, realistic deadlines are missing, the instructions for use are also missing. As usual, Euroburocrats do not find the assistance manual.
The request for suspension of a substantial part of the AI 2024 took hold during the summer, between strong pressures by companies and growing institutional embarrassment. One of the most serious hypotheses on the table plans to give companies up to a year more to adapt to the rules on high -risk uses of the AI. Which, translated, means: “Continue as before, we feel in 12 months”.
It is not yet known who will sign the final document, but all – even those against the block – in private begin to accept the inevitable. On the other hand, if even Mario Draghiwhich usually speaks little but when it speaks it does damage (to the illusions), a “source of uncertainty” allows itself to define the law, then the fritta has served.
The change of course is sensational. Brussels who was supposed to be the world capital of digital regulation risks becoming the frank zone of the regulatory postponement. If the ACT is rewritten, suspended or even just “adjusted” (as they say in the corridors of the EU buildings not to say “slowed down”), the European Union will officially go from the world forerunner to a fearful spectator. All this while he uses, China and Korea scrape as digital cars on the innovation track.
Moreover, the commission knows. He admits it – with a manual language of the community politician – that the standardization bodies have not respected the deadlines. And if the tracks are not ready, the train does not start. Or, in our case, derails even before leaving the station.
Yet there is no admission of guilt. There is only a ballet of words: consultations, digital omnibus, targeted adjustments. A draft (of course “without date” circulated last Friday, because nobody takes responsibility here) on the level of the commission to encourage the adoption of the AI.
The verification had been set for August. It was necessary to monitor IA systems that pose “serious risks” for health, safety and fundamental rights. Systems used in justice, in school, in human resources. But companies have not yet received technical standards to adapt. And they ask for time. A year, or if possible also two, to be precise, as requested by some of the main European companies. Long times in which new models, new chips, new digital empires will be born in the rest of the world. And in Europe? Conferences.
Poland, former president of the EU Council, has officially proposed to postpone the sanctions of six or 12 months. Warsaw fears that startups can escape to “less regulated” jurisdictions (read: America or Asia). And it is not the only one: Sweden and the Czech Republic also sides for the break. And who remains to defend the immediate application? A handful of digital idealists and 31 groups for civil rights, which accuse the commission of feeding a “vicious circle of delays”.
But you know: between ideals and lobbies, those who have more patience always wins. And more turnover.
In the meantime, in the real world, Nvidia has announced a 100 billion dollar investment for Open Ai, a figure that makes each European “Next Generation” support pale and ridicule the digital “structural funds”.
China advances strongly, integrating the state ganglias of the state, and South Korea invests in practical and industrial applications, without wasting time in seminars on “ethics and algorithm”. Europe? The Committee for complete regulatory simplification is still waiting for the impact assessment on paragraph 17, paragraph B of the technical annex. A joke, if it were not a drama.
In the end, we will remember this story as yet another European masterpiece on the contrary. You wanted to give an example to the world, and we ended up looking for the emergency exit. We wanted to regulate the future, and we lost ourselves in the present. We wanted to become the leader of the new digital order, and you remained prisoners of your bureaucracy.
Maybe everything was too intelligent for us.
