On 13 March, the European Parliament adopted its provisional position on the AI Act. After 3 years of political negotiations, the EBU notes this major step towards the first binding and comprehensive rulebook on AI globally.

Wouter Gekiere, Head of the Brussels Office, EBU, said: “The AI Act is the result of a long negotiating process which involved heated political debates and a high level of technical complexity. Although some provisions in the text still require further clarifications, this is a first good attempt at addressing the rapid developments in artificial intelligence. It introduces new provisions which will be helpful to limit mis- and disinformation and to establish a more balanced relationship between AI system providers and downstream actors. However, this is just one step in the process, and we will need to monitor how markets and technology evolve to ensure that media content is treated responsibly by AI systems.” 

AI is both a great opportunity for Europe’s economic and technological development, but it also creates new risks, some of which can have deep implications for the media. These include, increased disinformation and misinformation, proliferation of low-quality content, limitations to media pluralism, and challenges to established copyright rules.

The AI Act will try to address some of these concerns with new obligations to identify AI systems interacting with individuals as well as to label content generated or modified through AI. The new law will also require general-purpose AI providers to shed some light on the data used to train their models, therefore enabling content providers, such as public service media, to have more transparency on how AI systems use their content.

Public service media are innovators in AI development. They are using AI-assisted recommendation and translation tools that enable the sharing of news cross-border the pan-European networked newsroom: A European Perspective. This is is just one example of the innovative use of AI by the media.

As the AI Act concludes, Public Service Media stand ready to support EU institutions in order to ensure an effective enforcement of the new rules.