Great powers around the world have entered a race for AI supremacy. In the EU, the United States, China, and India, policymakers are putting forward competing frameworks to regulate AI globally while trying to achieve technological superiority.

For the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act to set a global benchmark for AI regulation, the resulting standards need to balance detail and legal clarity with flexibility to adapt to the emerging technologies.

It shows that Washington is an active partner in regulating advanced AI systems.

Once the EU’s AI Act becomes law, the EU faces a long journey to successfully implementing it. We have a message for the artificial intelligence office that will likely be created to help along the way, as well as for others involved in the implementation process.

America’s AI policy has been—and likely will remain—a mosaic of individual agency approaches and narrow legislation rather than a centralized strategy.

It is understandable that the potential broadening of the scope of the EU’s AI Act’ makes the United States nervous. Washington should come to the EU with targeted suggestions, as its domestic conversation around AI risks matures.

Why standards are at the centre of AI regulation conversations and the challenges they raise

Efforts to regulate artificial intelligence must aim to balance protecting the health, safety, and fundamental rights of individuals while reaping the benefits of innovation.

“Harmonised standards” play an important role in EU legislation by making what are at times vague essential requirements into concrete technical requirements.

As unprecedented as the EU AI Act is, it remains fundamentally a piece of EU legislation. Much of it is borrowed from common EU frameworks, to the extent that it cannot be properly understood without this broader context.