I don’t know, every time I hear about the AI Act it makes me laugh, also because the EU is really committed to regulating what it doesn’t produce and planting stakes to fence off technologies that change while the latest regulatory text is read. I’ll tell you what I think. First of all, I read in the Financial Times that the European Commission is considering granting companies “a one-year grace period” to comply with the rules on “high risk” systems, while other publications such as Reuters speak of a possible postponement of sanctions until 2027, and of a easing of obligations for generative models already on the market.
In fact, the package of “simplifications” which should be presented on November 19th includes the reduction of some mandatory registrations for systems at risk and a softer approach to post-market monitoring of algorithms. I won’t go into the merits, they are very specific and complicated rules, I only note that, if they are not rethinking it, perhaps they are thinking about the fact that it could be a boomerang. Since the real game is elsewhere, not in the EU: AI is becoming the heart of economic, strategic, technological, geopolitical (even military) competition, and Europe is watching from the sidelines, which is not surprising, it is the main characteristic of the EU.
Which, so to speak, does not have a decent model of artificial intelligence of its own, does not dominate research or lead the digital revolution (which will have pros and cons and therefore we must deal with them), and yet it claims to regulate with the illusion of protecting itself.
In short, the United States and China compete and dominate infrastructures and chips and influence global supply chains, allocating hundreds of billions, while Europe regulates, and the more we regulate on the matter the more we fall behind, and the further we fall behind the more we regulate, believing we have granted the AI giants “a year of grace”. The EU has not understood that technologically it is not pardoning others, it is pardoning itself so as not to be left out any more than it already is, ladies and gentlemen.