How the EU botched its attempt to regulate AI

The AI Act was designed to use Europe’s economic heft to force companies to create “trustworthy AI” for its 450mn consumers through a risk-based approach: banning the most harmful uses, controlling high-risk systems and lightly regulating low-risk ones.

But the law’s complexity, its rushed inclusion of AI models such as ChatGPT and its chaotic implementation have turned the AI Act from a symbol of European leadership into a case study for those who say the continent puts regulation ahead of innovation.