Extract from Rhys Dipshan’s article “‘General Purpose’ AI Providers Must Now Comply With EU AI Act. Enforcement Won’t Be Straightforward”
A year after the EU AI Act came into force, the regulation’s provisions for “general-purpose AI” (GPAI) systems have come into effect for certain AI models placed on the EU market starting Aug. 2. GPAI systems that were on the market before Aug. 2 have until Aug. 2, 2027, to comply with the regulation.
While the EU released guidelines in May to help GPAI providers comply with the act, how the regulation’s rules for GPAI systems will work in practice, especially ones that mandate compliance with copyright laws, is an open question.
What’s more, the scope of the regulation’s GPAI provisions and distinct nature of its enforcement, which differs considerably from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will likely present unique risks for many organizations in the AI industry—some of whom may not yet know they fall under the act’s purview.
Background on GPAI Rules
The EU Commission defines a GPAI model as one trained with a “large amount of data using self supervision at scale, that displays significant generality and is capable of competently performing a wide range of distinct tasks … [and] that can be integrated into a variety of downstream systems or applications.”
