AIG Newsletter 6 November 2023

NEWS

PARLIAMENT’S IMCO AND LIBE ARE BRIEFED ON AI ACT TRILOGUES

Rapporteur Brando Benifei briefed IMCO and LIBE committees on progress made during the latest trilogue, including from developments on 2-3 October. An agreement was reached on Article 6, which concerns high-risk classification. An AI system falling under one of the use cases in Annex 3 will not be considered high-risk if it performs a narrow procedural task or if its aim is to improve the quality of human output. The Commission will be empowered to adapt these conditions through delegated acts subject to precise elements to future-proof the regulation. AI systems performing profiling will always be considered high risk. Future rules on foundation models and general-purpose AI were discussed more in depth, and discussions on these are on a good path and an agreement was reached: high-impact foundation models, like ChatGPT, will be subject to stronger ex-ante and ex-post obligations. Expectations are increasing for a political agreement by the next trilogue in December.

COMMISSION WELCOMES G7 AGREEMENT ON AI

The Commission welcomed the G7 leaders' agreement on International Guiding Principles on AI and a voluntary Code of Conduct for AI developers as part of the Hiroshima AI process. These principles and the Code of Conduct aim to complement the legally binding rules being finalised under the EU AI Act. The Guiding Principles, adopted by the G7 countries and the EU, offer guidance for organisations involved in advanced AI systems, focusing on safety and trustworthiness. They include commitments to mitigate risks, responsible information sharing, investment in cybersecurity, and a labelling system for AI-generated content. The G7 leaders have called on organisations developing advanced AI systems to commit to the International Code of Conduct, with the first signatories to be announced soon.

RAPPORTEUR VERHEYEN REPORTS BACK TO THE CULT COMMITTEE ON EMFA

On October 24, Parliament’s CULT Committee was briefed by Rapporteur Sabine Verheyen on the outcomes of the first trilogue meeting on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). During trilogue, Verheyen flagged the need to protect media pluralism and independence, and to protect cultural diversity, national rights and obligations. Verheyen also stressed the need to champion media pluralism, resilience and the digital transformation of the sector. She went on to note that both the Spanish Presidency and the Commission had been constructive and made good progress. The next trilogue will take place at the end of November.

TRANSPARENCY REPORTS PUBLISHED UNDER DSA FRAMEWORK

Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) have published transparency reports, as required under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Transparency reports must include information on content moderation on the platforms' services, detailing the number of notices they receive from users (and once in place, trusted flaggers), the number of pieces of content taken down on the platform's own initiative, the number of orders they receive from all relevant national judicial or administrative authorities, and the accuracy and rate of error of their automated content moderation systems. The reports must also include information on content moderation teams, including their qualifications and linguistic expertise. VLOPs and VLOSEs have been required to publish transparency reports for the first time, following their designationon 25 April, and will need to do so every six months. Platforms with less than 45 million users and intermediary services will also have to publish annual transparency reports once the DSA starts applying to them in February 2024.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

8 November: AIG Exchange meeting, 13.00 (CET)

14 November: EDAA Summit 2023

15-16 November: Europe Data Protection Congress 2023, IAPP

16-17 November: How is Artificial Intelligence shaping work? European Employment and Social Rights Forum