Greens/EFA Group welcomes historic step towards ethical AI governance
AI Act
Today, the European Parliament has voted on the historic AI Act, marking a significant step towards ensuring ethical governance of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across the EU. The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament has fought to ensure robust safeguards to protect fundamental rights and democratic principles, as well as the environment in the AI Act. The Act, the first of its kind globally, is a comprehensive legislative framework designed to regulate the development, deployment, and use of AI systems.
Sergey Lagodinsky MEP, Greens/EFA Group shadow rapporteur in the LIBE Committee, comments:
“The AI Act marks a quantum leap towards ethical and sustainable AI governance. Our Group has long been advocating for a human-centric approach to AI, which puts fundamental rights at the core of AI legislation. Regulation of AI is a sign that we do not want an AI-wild west in Europe and want innovation that is dynamic, yet controllable. Thanks to our efforts we have ensured that the AI act will ban a number of the most problematic l practices in the EU, such as emotions surveillance of students and employees, or AI used in certain instances of predictive policing or categorization of citizens.
“While we believe that the protections against facial recognition could have been more robust, we managed to substantially improve the Commission proposal here but also on many other issues like the mandatory fundamental rights impact assessments for certain AI deployers or the introduction of environmental obligations. The use of AI technology for migration purposes is deemed high-risk and is therefore subject to certain obligations."
Kim van Sparrentak MEP, Greens/EFA Group shadow rapporteur in the IMCO Committee, comments:
"The adoption of the AI Act represents a historic milestone. The EU is the first in the world with solid rules for ethical AI. By setting clear rules and standards for the development and deployment of AI systems, we are paving the way for a future where technology serves society while respecting fundamental rights and democratic principles.
“The AI Act is essential to foster innovation in the right direction, while protecting people against discrimination, surveillance and AI-generated disinformation. It will also ensure that people in Europe will never again stand empty handed against a computer, as we saw in the Dutch child benefits scandal. We also fought an unprecedented Big Tech lobby against these rules. This goes especially for the largest new AI models, such as Chat GPT and Gemini. They will now have to be fully tested before entering the EU and will have to be more transparent about how their models are trained, on which data and how much energy they use.”
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