Regulating AI. A Label To Complete the Proposed Act on Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

AI regulation is emerging in the EU. The European authorities, NGOs and academics have already issued a series of proposals to accommodate the ‘development and uptake of AI’ with an ‘appropriate ethical and legal framework’ and promote what the European Commission has called an ‘ecosystem of trust’. In the spring of 2020, the European Commission submitted a legislative proposal for public consultation including four options ranging from “soft law only” to a broad scope of mandatory requirements and combinations thereof, for addressing the risks linked to the development and use of certain AI applications. One year later, the Commission unveiled on 21 April 2021 the EU Act on Artificial Intelligence. The proposal primarily focusses on regulating ’high-risk’ systems through mandatory requirements and prohibition measures. This approach leaves a wide range of AI-systems, with potentially serious impact on fundamental rights, merely unregulated as regards specifically AI related risks. This paper explores the boundaries of the impact of the Act for primarily non-high-risk systems and discuss the options for introducing a voluntary labelling scheme for enhancing protection against the risks of medium and low risk AI systems.

Keywords: AI regulation, Labels, Certification, Self-regulation, Soft law