EU's AI Act Has Europe's Back Against Rogue Bots — Paper Trail Included 🤖📜

The European Union's existing regulations are equipped to deal with rogue artificial intelligence systems, the bloc's tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in an interview with Reuters on Friday, pushing back against critics who describe the rules as outdated. Her comments come amid international concern about the safety of advanced AI models, including recent incidents involving OpenAI and Anthropic.

"We see that the safety and security of very capable models is a very hot topic internationally and we in Europe are well equipped for that," Virkkunen said. She noted that the EU's AI Act, which regulates systems based on their level of risk, is among the strictest AI frameworks in the world. The regulation was adopted two years ago.

Virkkunen emphasized that the AI Act covers the full life cycle of AI models, from development to deployment. "We have our AI Act in place and the AI Act covers the whole life cycle of these models," she said, adding that regulators are currently providing guidance to companies on how to evaluate their systems, drawing on recommendations from a panel of 60 AI experts.

The European Commission in late August sent information requests to more than 30 unnamed AI companies, asking for details on their safety and security measures. Virkkunen said she is now reviewing the responses from those companies.

Separately, Cointelegraph reported Sept. 13 that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a blog post that the speed of AI development is moving too quickly and could "outrun our ability to understand and control these systems." Amodei attributed the rapid advancement to recursive self-improvement, the process by which AI systems build the next generation of AI.