EU Unveils Plans To Regulate AI & Big Tech

The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled its plans for the future of artificial intelligence in the bloc. The EU is eager to take advantage of the burgeoning technology sector, which has so far been largely dominated by China and the United States.

American tech companies will face new restrictions in the European Union on on the alleged use of data to drive out smaller rivals, as the bloc seeks to assert its “digital sovereignty” from the US and China.

The new strategy aims to stimulate and regulate the development of artificial intelligence in the EU with funding of €20 billion per year for the next decade.

“We want to encourage our businesses, our researchers, our innovators, the entrepreneurs, to develop AI and we want to encourage our citizens to feel confident to use it,” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen told a press conference.

The legislation, to be drafted by the end of 2020, is also likely to home in on what the EU has learned from antitrust cases against Alphabet’s Google and ongoing probes into Amazon.com. and Facebook how these platforms allegedly use data to quash smaller rivals. These technology giants—which some US politicians such as Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren want to regulate as public utilities—are in the firing line of the coming EU legislation.

Liability rules regarding the content shared on online platforms are also due to be spelled out in the Digital Services Act by the end of the year. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton said Monday that a pledge by Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to accept a degree of liability for content posted was insufficient, because he didn’t address the issue of dominant platforms having responsibilities toward smaller players on the platform. 

The rules will also come with new restrictions for US and Chinese companies that develop machine-learning-enabled technologies, particularly when they handle sensitive data such as medical records or facial images.