As previously posted, the EU has been entertaining legislation of wide scope to control AI in numerous ways; this past Wednesday they enacted the first part of their proposed regulatory scheme.  Seems only China is ahead of the EU, and that the US lags far behind, in legislating AI controls.

Major points of the currently enacted EU law:

1.Live facial recognition software is banned.  (Query whether exemptions will follow for national security or law enforcement applications.)

2. Generative AI must be accompanied by summaries of copywritten materials used for training the system, and must be subject to controls to prevent illegal contact.

3. Critical AI systems must be subjected to risk testing if related to critical functions: infrastructure such as water and energy, legal system, access to government services and benefits.

4. Developers cannot “scrape” biometric data from social media in building their database.

Of course, such regulations will be complied with (one hopes) by  developers in commercial space and no doubt will avoid a wide variety of problems arising by accident or mis-design.  Criminal elements or enemy governments will not be checking the European Parliament code books for guidance, however.