The EU’s approach to AI changed substantially last June, but, to most, it went unnoticed. Instead of regulating the risks of AI, the European Commission now seems preoccupied with making AI happen.
Whether you are a fan of AI or not, as a human, that should worry you.
The Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), published in June as a flagship of the EU’s Tech Sovereignty package, illustrates this new push. Were you to read Titles II and III of CADA, you might notice something odd: Almost none of the obligations are aimed at companies enabling AI. Instead, they’re aimed at the EU’s national governments.
Member states must write national cloud and AI strategies, set up ‘Centres for AI’ and designate at least one “data centre acceleration zone”. They must remove data bottlenecks. The commission and member states must also make sure designated frontier AI projects get access to all the computational capacity they need.
Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna of the Future of Privacy Forum calls it arguably the EU’s first comprehensive tech regulation to impose “positive obligations” to enable innovation and the widespread adoption of AI.
