Europe still needs to do more to provide real artificial intelligence reassurance

Artificial intelligence CEOs seem to have concluded that there is a risk of loss of control over their models. Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei has called for an industry slowdown; some of his peers agree. For the European Union, this may offer some vindication of its legislative approach. EU law already obliges frontier AI companies to assess loss-of-control risks. The implication is that the EU has protection in place and cannot be surprised.

That confidence is misplaced. The AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) contains binding rules that are progressively entering into force. But they are insufficient for all AI risks, and close to impossible to enforce with the EU’s current means.

Most recently, the European Commission gained powers to investigate general-purpose AI providers, order corrective measures and fine providers up to 3% of worldwide revenues if they fail to tackle systemic risks. Most other rules, covering AI applications, are still to take effect and are mostly for national authorities to enforce. From 2 December 2027, national authorities will start to supervise standalone high-risk applications, such as algorithms that screen job candidates. From 2 August 2028, this responsibility will extend to AI embedded in regulated products, such as software designed to examine MRI scans for tumours.